First Person, Present
by kaybaecullen
Summary: The auditorium at the high school is over capacity, thanks to both a small, recent upsurge in the population of Forks, WA and the fact that too many people in this good town are crashing the graduation ceremony.


**First Person, Present**

**Note: **All recognizable characters are the property of their respective owners. I own nothing but

original characters and the plot. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Chapter One**

The auditorium at the high school is over capacity, thanks to both a small, recent upsurge in the

population of Forks, WA and the fact that too many people in this good town are crashing the

graduation ceremony. Or maybe it just seems smaller, this auditorium, because everything about

your old school always looks smaller when you visit later, after you'd graduated and seen

something of the world beyond its walls.

Thanks to all of the extra bodies, the air is too hot for the air conditioning system to handle. It

should at least be able to remove a little of the humidity from the air. But like most of the features

of an old building in a small town, it is aged, shuffling slowly around on feeble legs, leaving

everyone to marvel that it still functions at all.

I look back to the stage, where all sixty-odd members of the senior class will be seated in a semicircle

of chairs, two rows deep. I remember that ancient oak podium now planted in the middle of

the stage, and I wonder how many graduations that podium has seen: how many nervous

valedictorians have tripped over themselves to give a speech so fresh and original that it would

be talked about for years to come? How many benedictions from the minister of the community

church? How many world-weary principals have lied through their teeth, fondly reminiscing about

the school year that just ended?

As we wait for the processional of fresh-faced young graduates to start, my eyes wander among

all of the seated people. I spot Jasper sitting three rows ahead of us. He must be sitting with his

girlfriend Alice's parents, which means that…

Yes. Edward Cullen, Alice's brother, is sitting on Jasper's left. _Of course _he would be at his

sister's graduation. I should be over it by now, but just a glimpse of him pushes a shot of

adrenalin through my veins. The muscles in my neck and shoulders go rigid, and my stomach

balls into a knot. I still despise him for the way he treated Bella last fall, and I resent everything

about him and his everything-comes-easy life. I hope his freshman year at the University of

Washington kicked his little pre-med ass.

Last year, Cullen left for college and proceeded to treat Bella like a pariah until he finally broke up

with her– _by email _- at the end of October. When I met her at a party over Thanksgiving break,

she was angry, bitter, and determined to divest herself of the virginity that she had been saving,

at Edward's insistence, for the following year, when she would head to UW herself.

We hooked up at that party, and after a long talk in which she told me everything that had

happened and how much she needed to feel desirable and wanted, I agreed to help her with her

plan. And she got her wish.

She was never a casual lay for me, though. That was obvious from the moment I spotted her

across the room. I called her my buried treasure that night, and I meant it. I spent the weeks that

followed trying to make her believe it herself, and now, seven months later, I think she does. I

_hope _she does.

The question now is, what lies ahead? We have the summer left, and then she goes off to college

and I head back east, back to Penn to fulfill the deal I made with my parents: a year off to work on

my writing, and then back to school for two years to finish my econ degree.

That deal had seemed pretty sweet the day I'd made it, but as I got closer to September, it started

to feel like a bargain I'd made with Satan.

Because the Devil doesn't tempt you with monotony and indifference, does he?

Fulfillment…gratification…happiness. Those are the tools he uses to ensnare souls.

The last year had been the best one of my life. When I got back to Forks after sophomore year, I

found a bartending job that paid well enough to feed me and keep a roof over my head. It left me

plenty of time to write, and I even got back into surfing again. The idea for a story came to me

one day while I was driving out to La Push with Jasper. I almost killed myself in the surf,

distracted by images and pieces of dialogue. I rushed back to my apartment, opened my laptop,

and the words poured out of me. It was a heady rush, like hitting an oil pocket, your whole body

suddenly dripping with that elusive stuff you're always terrified you'll never find again.

I wrote for eight hours straight. _The output of a well-fed soul_, Bella said.

Bella. Somehow, having her in my life now, and they way I feel about her - it's all become tied up

in the writing and the direction in which my life seems to be turning. She hated being called my

muse, and truthfully, that's not what she's been for me. She's more like my touchstone, a

counterweight for my tendency to sink too far into my own head. And when I get a little lost, she's

Polaris.

"So…Peter." Renee lays her hand on my arm, pulling me out of the fogbank of memories I'd been

stumbling around in.

"Yes." I turn my full attention to Bella's mother. "Renee." I smile. Her own smile is girlish and

confident, but her cheerleader's face doesn't fool me one bit. Renee Dwyer is a bit of a flirt, but

the kind of flirt who uses her talent to throw people off her scent. I see what she's doing. Since I

met her two days ago, she's been trying to get to the bottom of my relationship with Bella. She

hasn't started firing the hard questions at me yet, but I can hear the whole conversation:

Is it serious?

_Oh, yes. Very._

Are you having sex with my daughter?

_Affirmative. Mind-blowing, life-changing, all-consuming…sex with your daughter._

Okay, maybe I'll leave out the descriptors. In fact, I won't even answer that one; I'll just tell her to

ask Bella - which will be all the response she needs. And then Bella will take my balls off. One at

a time.

Will you break her heart like Edward Cullen did?

_I'd sooner die._

And that is the honest truth, Renee Dwyer, and you can take that to any bank. I've never loved

anyone or anything more in my life than I do your daughter - not my parents, not writing, not

surfing, not even the puppy I got when I was eight, and that dog was my whole world for twelve

years.

"So, Bella tells me you're a writer."

"I am. Well, it's not my day job or anything," I qualify. That's a basic part of my make-up, which

she might as well get used to: the equivocal answer. Some people really need a yes or no; I tend

to piss everyone off with "it depends." Just ask the Chief, Bella's father. It's taken him months to

get used to my answers that don't tell him anything.

"That's right. Bella told me that, too. You tend bar at Flanagan's. So what are you writing these

days, Peter?"

"Oh…I've written some short stories, a little poetry. One novel that's an embarrassing piece of

crap." Renee starts to protest but I cut her off. "No, really, it's total excrement, but I think I learned

a few things. And now I'm working on another novel. I hope to get this one published."

_If I ever finish it. If the next two years don't rip every creative impulse I have out by its roots,_

_leaving me nothing more than a dung-flinging primate whose cage is a six-by-six cubicle._

"Oh, that's wonderful!" Renee says. Her gushing seems sincere, and truth be told, I find it a bit

endearing. "I completely believe one should follow his or her bliss," she adds, leaning closer to

me, taking me into her confidence.

On my right, the Chief shifts in his seat. On the other side of Renee, her husband Phil is playing a

game on his phone.

"You know," Renee says quietly, "as a parent, the last thing you want is for your kids to make the

same mistakes you made. I made a lot of mistakes in the beginning, and I hurt people I didn't

want to hurt for anything. I married too young and I had a baby right away. And then I had to

juggle my own attempts to grow up with raising my kid." Her eyes fill and she glances up at the

high ceiling of the auditorium.

"You did a good job, Renee," I say in a low voice. "Both of you did." Bella is the proof of that, and I

need to remember that I have her parents to thank for it.

"Thank you." Renee dabs under eyes with an index finger. "And that's why I want something

different for my daughter. I want Bella to go out there and grab at everything, every opportunity

for adventure, every chance to learn about life – the good and the bad parts." Renee gives up on

her efforts to stay composed, and a tear slips down her cheek.

Charlie is completely still and I think he must have heard every word Renee said. So, when I think

about what to say to back to her, I really intend it for both of them.

"I agree. I want the same things for her. And I promise you that I'll do what I can to make them

happen. And that includes not standing in her way."

"So, do we have you to thank, then, for her changing her mind about schools?"

I glance over at Charlie, still motionless, his face stony while he stares straight ahead. I know this

is a sore point with him and Bella. And somehow, I don't think he would have used the word

"thank." More like "blame."

"No," I say firmly. "That was all Bella. She changed her mind about UW because she decided to

reach for a top journalism school instead. Northwestern was her idea, not mine."

I don't know if the Chief believes this or not, but if he really thinks about who is daughter has

become, he should.

Motion from a wing of the stage catches everyone's attention and the chatter of the audience falls

away. The band director walks to center stage, bows once to our applause, and then enters the

music pit to lead the band in the opening strains of "Pomp and Circumstance."

We all stand as the doors of the auditorium open. The graduates file in from the back, and they

wave and make faces at family and friends as they pass, all sense of decorum breaking down.

And maybe that's how it should be. Solemnity and high school graduation never did seem to me

like they went together particularly well.

Renee spots Bella as she walks down the aisle past us, and in a voice that is breaking around its

edges, she says "Go, baby!" I know that Bella, who hates to be watched, is probably not enjoying

this processional, but when she hears her mother's voice, she turns toward us and I watch a

smile transform the face I adore. Our eyes connect, and for a brief moment, that smile is for me.

As she continues down the aisle, I know that I shouldn't look for him, but I do. I find Edward

Cullen again, and his eyes have found Bella. As she walks past him, I see all of the evidence on

his face, even though it is only in profile: he still notices her, he still finds her beautiful, and at

least part of him still loves her.

I should have been prepared to see that, but the truth is, I am not.

When everyone is again seated, the prayers and the speeches and the thank yous begin.

I scan all of the now-seated graduates and easily find Bella, who's in the second row and lucky

enough to be on the center aisle. She appears to be listening politely to that Jessica girl, the one

whose last name I can never remember, except that it has something to do with carpet cleaning.

Bella's legs are crossed, one navy Converse moving back and forth in a nervous, twitchy arc. I

study her bare ankle, encircled by a charm bracelet that Renee had given her yesterday. Bella

insisted on wearing it around her ankle instead, probably both to annoy her mother and because

she knew that it would draw more attention to the fact that Bella refused to wear heels to

graduation.

My eyes travel up the smooth, white skin of her leg, along the curve of her calf as it presses

against her other leg, until it finally disappears underneath the edge of her graduation gown. From

there I have to use my imagination, picturing the hem of her dress as it rides up a bit on her

thighs, the boundary that marks my own private Promised Land.

And then, as if her radar can detect the path of my eyes as they work their way under the hem of

her dress, she abruptly turns her head away from Jessica's rambling and looks directly at me. Her

brows knit together.

"Stop it," she mouths.

I give her a lascivious grin and shake my head. _Not on your life._

I marvel at the fact that even at an event with a couple of hundred people present, Bella and I can

exist in the same moment together, one that's just our own.

That is, it's our own until Renee notices her daughter's feet.

"Oh. My. God," she says, to no one in particular. "Why did she wear basketball sneakers to

graduation? They look ridiculous with that dress."

From the side of his mouth Charlie says, "I think she's happier just being comfortable, Renee."

It seemed like a good idea at the time, sitting between Bella's parents. I thought they might feel

more comfortable, but now I feel a little like a spectator at center court of the US Open.

"And Bella's always been a very smart, hard-working student," Phil adds. "She should get to be

comfortable at her own graduation."

Renee opens to her mouth and then closes it, a scowl on her face. I recognize that scowl. Outvoted

by both her ex- and current husbands, she accepts defeat and lets go of the issue of Bella's

footwear.

Graduation speeches are one of those things we can count on to tell us mostly the same things,

year after year - "carpe diem," "embrace the future," "change the world." And this year's

valedictorian, Angela Weber, ambitiously tries to corral all of these old workhorses into her own

address.

"And so we look toward our future, thought it is still shrouded in mist. We cannot yet make out the

details, or even see clearly the path in front of us, yet we move forward."

_Someone please kill me if I ever write something like that_. _String me up, eviscerate me, and throw_

_my entrails to a bunch of wild pigs. _Angela Weber is a very nice girl, but she should have begged

Bella to write this speech for her.

I try to make eye contact with Bella to see if she too is suffering a brain bleed as she listens to

this, but she appears to be absorbed in the silver bracelet around her ankle.

Angela drones on, and her soft voice, combined with the stifling humidity in the auditorium,

threatens to render many in the audience unconscious.

"And what is the most important thing we can take with us on our journey forward? What is the

one thing that can get us through the confusion, the fear, and the self-doubt?"

_Strawberry Twizzlers?_

"Each other."

Bella looks up from her foot and her eyes move over the crowd until they find me. I give her half a

smile, and she returns it.

"Today, we're all being told that we can achieve great things," Angela continues. "But the greatest

difference we can make is in the lives of those around us. If we hold fast to each other, no

adversity can break those bonds, and when we go out into the world, we won't have to go alone."

The auditorium erupts into smiling applause, save for Bella. She's looking at me with intense

focus, as if willing me to read her mind. In a small gesture, so small that her hands do not move

from her lap, she extends one index finger in my direction, and then points it back at herself.

I repeat the gesture back to her. _You and me._

**Chapter Two**

As we pull up to the Cullens' enormous house, my pulse is too fast, and my stomach feels like a

sponge from which someone is trying hard to wring the last drops of acid. I would open the car

door and vomit, but my stomach is empty. Come to think of it, maybe I could just upchuck my

whole stomach. End of problem.

As Charlie pulls the car into an open spot on the grass, I look up at the white façade of the home

in which I'd spent so much time, pulling double duty as Alice's best friend and Edward's girlfriend.

There are the porch swings flanking the front door. (Yes, a porch so long it has _two _swings.)

There are the two enormous black iron planters on either side of the front steps, overflowing with

purple and yellow flowers. Edward's mother, Esme, fills them every spring.

Charlie gets out of the car and closes the door with firm _thunk_. He's immediately approached by

Mike Newton's father and sucked into a conversation—one of the perils of being the Chief of

Police in a small town. Everyone always wants to be friends with Charlie, to be on his good side,

should the day ever come when Charlie needs to show them his bad side.

I'm not quite able to move just yet. I feel like if I move my head too fast, I'll get dizzy. I'm still

running down the list of firsts in my head: despite the fact that one of my closest friends lives

here, it's the first time I've set foot in this house since last fall, when Edward dumped me. This is

the first time I will have spoken to his parents. It's the first time my mother has _ever _been here,

after months of listening to me gush over the phone about all things Cullen.

And the list topper, the one I save for last: it's the first time I will have seen or spoken to Edward

since the email he sent; the "it's not you, it's me - I've changed, this is for your own good" email.

True, I did see him in the audience at graduation this morning, sitting between his mother and

Jasper. For the rest of the ceremony, I scrupulously avoided looking at any of the Cullens. I

studied my feet or played with the tassel on my cap. Each time I was tempted to steal a quick

glance at Edward, I looked for my family and Peter instead. Peter made goofy faces at me, or

stared at my legs and shot me smirking, sexy grins.

As I sit there in the passenger seat, punishing myself for my neuroses, my door opens and Peter,

(who rode in the back) takes my hand and pulls me out of both the car and my funk.

"Ready?" he asks, and I blow out a gust of breath and nod. He kisses the top of my head and

pulls me into his side, under the shelter of his arm.

My mother and Phil join us, having followed us here. Mom pretends to fix my hair and straighten

my dress, but both are just a cover-up for her real mission: searching my face for clues to my

emotional state.

"Bella," she sighs with exaggerated, long-suffering pain, "you have beautiful legs that most

women would kill for. Why do you have to wear sneakers? And with this dress, which is so classy

and elegant."

"Mom."

"They're ruining the whole effect, Bella. You could be Audrey Hepburn in this dress, especially

with your hair up like that." Peter almost chokes, swallowing back a laugh behind his hand.

"Mom."

"Peter, she has great legs, doesn't she?"

Peter does his adorable George Clooney thing, complete with darting eyes and twitching mouth.

"Uh…" He shoves his hands into his pockets and shrugs.

"Mom!" I grab her by the shoulders to get her full attention, and that's when her face splits into a

grin. I return it, recognizing what she's doing as she deliberately picks at and provokes me, all in

an effort to get me to relax. It might sound dysfunctional and it might be annoying as hell, but it

always works. And it's us.

"Let's go," she says, slipping an arm around my waist. "I can't wait to finally see the inside of this

place."

Alice throws her arms around me as soon as we cross the threshold and she squeezes the

breath out of me. We've remained close friends, though we will never be what we were before her

brother became such an asshole. She understood my need for space, for distance from all the

reminders of her brother and the way things had ended. And while she continued to invite me to

her home, she never seemed to mind that I always turned those invitations down. We still saw

each other at school, still studied and did projects together – we just did those things at my

house.

"Mother!" she yells, obnoxiously loud, and Esme Cullen steps into the foyer.

"Alice, inside voice, please." She stops suddenly when she sees me standing there next to her

daughter. "Bella…"

I had feared this moment, afraid of the awkwardness, worried about seeing someone again who

had, in essence, _died _to me. She'd been such a presence in my life from the first day I'd started

school in Forks. Alice brought me home with her that afternoon and made me stay for dinner.

Later, I learned that Esme had called Charlie and asked for my mother's number in Phoenix. She

introduced herself to Renee over the phone and told her that the first day of school had gone just

fine. For the next ten months, she had been my mother's stand-in.

"Oh, Bella," she says, and quickly steps across the foyer to envelope me in her arms. She is still

like something out of an ad for Ralph Lauren: a regal package, stylishly dressed, her hair and

makeup perfect. When she pulls back, she dabs at her eyes and then squares her shoulders as

she looks at me.

"You look gorgeous, sweetie. So grown up. I love your hair up like that." Looking down at my feet,

she adds, "And nice shoes."

She turns to greet my family with hugs, and then stops in front of Peter.

"Esme," I say, "Um…this is my…boyfriend, Peter Bennett. He's also a friend of Jasper's."

"Mrs. Cullen, you have a beautiful home," Peter says, smiling down at her with his blue eyes, as

Esme offers her hand and he takes it between both of his. She looks slightly stunned, but I'm not

worried; she's probably heard about Peter from both her daughter and Jasper, and his reputation

as a smooth talking charmer precedes him most places in Forks.

"Why thank you, Peter. Come on in, everyone. I hope you're hungry. There's a buffet in the dining

room, and beverages are out back on the patio. Please help yourselves and let me know if you

need anything."

"It really is a killer dress," Peter says into my ear, as he takes my elbow and we follow my parents

into the dining room. It's a sleeveless fitted sheath, in a navy and white pattern that falls several

inches above my knees. Around my neck is a single strand of pearls, a graduation gift from Peter

that so far, not one person has asked me about, probably assuming that they are just an

inexpensive strand I bought myself. In fact, they are real, but that is all he will say about them.

"And I actually picked it out myself, if you can believe that," I reply. We queue up for the buffet,

collecting plates from a stack on the sideboard.

"From now on, I'm calling it the Audrey dress," he replies, his gaze sweeping down my body and

back up to my face. "Now bring that neck over here."

"So demanding," I say, but I tilt my head to one side so Peter can put his mouth on the spot below

my ear, the one that makes me moan and close my eyes. At least I've learned to moan almost

silently now. "You and your neck fetish, Mr. Bennett."

"It's not a fetish if it's only _your _neck I want," he murmurs against my ear, and my knees actually

wobble a little.

When I open my eyes again, there on the other side of the dining room table is Edward. He's

standing against the wall, laughing about something his older brother, Emmett, has just said.

Unbelievably, I had forgotten about him, in all of the emotion of seeing his mother again.

I have not been this close to him since October 17th of last year, when I had gone to UW with his

parents to visit him…when he put me in the back seat of his parents' car with nothing more than a

one-armed hug for a goodbye.

He is every bit as attractive as I remember: perfectly carved features, and a gorgeous head of

very grab-able auburn hair. He even slouches with an easy grace, a hand in one pocket of his

khaki pants. He might have just stepped out of one of those Ralph Lauren ads with his mother.

And there I stand, motionless, mouth unattractively hanging open, holding a scoop of potato salad

in mid-air. _Lovely_.

I pull myself back together and put the salad on my plate, handing the spoon to Peter. I look up

into his eyes and don't need to say a word.

"I saw him, too," he says in a low voice. "You okay?"

I nod, and help myself to a kabob of fresh fruit. Maybe I'll hold onto the wooden skewer, just in

case I need to stab a vampire through the heart.

Our plates full, we have a seat outside on the expanse of the back lawn. There's a large tent

(because in Washington, you plan for rain, even on sunny days) and underneath it, the rental

company has placed big round tables, and chairs with pristine slipcovers. If this is what Alice's

graduation party looks like, I cannot wait to see her wedding reception.

For the next hour, we have pleasant conversations with the rest of the Cullen family, including

Emmett and his girlfriend, Rosalie. Over beers, Emmett and Peter reminisce about high school

sports. Emmett was a year ahead of Peter in high school, but they both swam and played

baseball together. He and Rosalie met in college and just graduated from UW last month. They

both start law school at Princeton in September, and while they're not engaged officially, it's a

given; you don't apply to the same law school if you're not serious about each other.

"Bella," Rosalie says quietly, after moving into the empty chair next to mine, "I'm sorry about what

happened with Edward. I always liked you, and I thought you were good for him. Frankly, I think

he was a real shit for the way he ended things with you."

I shrug and reply with a small nod, unsure of what to say. Rosalie, whom I'd met several times

last summer and over holidays when Edward and I were together, has always intimidated the hell

out of me. I smile to myself when I imagine what she would have done to him, had it been her that

he'd sent that email to.

"But it looks like you've landed on your feet," she adds with a sultry smile, gesturing with her chin

toward Peter. He's slipped into his bartender persona, and is entertaining everyone at the table

with an anecdote. "He's adorable."

I watch him for a moment, his open, expressive face, the way he is so at ease with people. "I

know," I answer, "and he's a really good guy, too. He's…honorable - I know that sounds weird,

but it's the best word I can think of. And I trust him, more than I've ever trusted anyone before."

"Good. Trust is important. When someone in your past has hurt you, has betrayed your trust, it's

easy to become bitter." Rosalie stares off toward the woods at the far end of the lawn, and I get

the sense that she's not just talking hypothetically. "It takes someone special to help you open

your heart back up again. The fact that you can trust someone again, so soon after Edward?

Peter must really be something else."

"He is," I say softly.

I remember that Rosalie is from back East, somewhere in New York. "You met Emmett as an

undergrad, right?" I ask her.

"Yes, I met him during junior year, in a Poly Sci class."

"So you two have never had to do the distance thing, right?" I ask.

"Well, we were apart for part of last summer and for most breaks." Rosalie tilts her blond head

slightly, fixing me with her eyes. "Why?"

"I'm leaving for Northwestern, and Peter's got two more years at Penn."

"Ah," she replies, sitting back and crossing her legs, "And you're worried, huh?"

"No," I answer, a little too quickly. "Okay…maybe a bit." I glance at my mother, who is chatting up

Jasper about something. "It's not like I have the best track record with separations, you know."

"I don't know what to tell you, Bella, except to be careful about dwelling in the past. If the

relationship is strong, you both hold on and make it work."

"You sound like Peter."

She smiles and glances over at him. "How old is he?"

"Almost twenty-two."

"Then he's already had the freshman epiphany," she says, with a wave of her hand. "I think you

guys will be fine. This will sound clichéd, probably, but just keep the communication open

between you." She pauses. "And don't forget that heading off to college should be about you too,

Bella. This is an exciting time." Smiling, she gives my shoulder a playful shove. "Have fun and

don't focus on the down side, okay?"

"You're right. Thanks."

Though I try not to, I can't seem to stop checking my peripheral vision for Edward, so that the

next time I see him, it doesn't take me by surprise.

When he broke it off last year, thoughts about him crept, unwanted, into my head every day. I

was always mistakenly spotting him in crowds. When the phone would ring, I wondered if it was

Edward calling to say he'd made a mistake, that I was enough, after all.

I don't want Edward to own even one more moment of my peace, to occupy even a fraction of the

smallest part of my consciousness.

As I stand on the slate patio, waiting in line at the bar to get Diet Cokes for Renee and me, I feel a

hand close on my upper arm and I hear that voice…soft, smooth, and kind - _that voice _- in my

ear.

"Bella?"

Unfortunately, I hear Edward's voice at the exact time the barkeep hands me the second

enormous plastic cup of soda. Hearing it come from out of nowhere throws off my timing and the

cup slips through my hand and crashes to the stone floor. Diet Coke and ice cubes fly in every

direction, splattering my feet and those of every person within a four-foot radius.

"Shit," I say, and then quickly slap my hand over my mouth, an old reflex action because Edward

always hated it when I cursed.

And then Edward laughs, a big, honest laugh, his head thrown back and his eyes closed. When

he stops laughing, he looks down at me, fixing me stock-still with those green eyes. He lets go of

my arm, but not before applying a gentle squeeze. "Still a potty mouth, I see."

"Yeah, well…it was cold, okay?" _Oh, brilliant repartee, Bella_. _You've had eight months to plan for_

_this and that's the best you've got?_

Edward and I don't move from our places, and at first, I look everywhere but at him.

"Hey," he says, and then I do look up at his smiling face and answer, "Hey." I do so easily, like a

reflex action. Because that's how we used to greet each other, every day before first bell, or on

the weekends, over the phone, just before breakfast. That brief exchange, the easy way it

returned to both of us, evokes a wave of nostalgia in me. I feel a sharp poke at my heart,

unexpected and unwanted.

Still smiling, he says, "You look great, Bella. Really... great."

"Thank you," I say, being polite without even thinking about it, without remembering that he

forfeited the right to say nice things to me.

While we stand there having this quiet exchange, a worker from the catering company discreetly

takes care of the spill. Edward turns to the guy behind the bar and orders another soda. He takes

the other cup from me.

"Who are these for?" he asks.

"Well, one is mine, so you can give it back to me. The other one is for my mom."

"Wait right here. Please." He delivers the other Diet Coke to Renee, and I watch the whole table,

Mom, Charlie, Phil, Peter, fall silent. They stare blankly at Edward as he nods politely to them and

turns to leave.

Peter's watchful eyes meet mine, and he tilts his head, his forehead creased. _Are you okay?_

I nod, and I really mean it, because just those few seconds of contact with him, even from this

distance, feels like I just did a shot of something strong. It's a fortifying rush of warmth that

spreads from my chest up to my face, and drags the corners of my mouth up with it. Peter has to

sit over there and watch me talking with my ex-boyfriend, the one who broke my heart, and he

asks if _I'm _okay.

I give him an even bigger smile. _I'm good. I love you._

As Edward walks back to the patio, he blocks my line of sight with Peter. He stops in front of me.

"Bella, can we go somewhere and talk for a few minutes?"

Why did I _know _he was going to do this? Is it because I'm really happy right now and the public

evidence of that somehow makes it easier for Edward to summon the balls to speak to me?

"Edward…" I shake my head and lower my eyes to his chest. "I don't know… I'm here with my

family, and…"

"Please? It won't take long. I just need a few minutes to say some things, things I've wanted to

say for a long time."

His last words are like a dimmer switch in my head, turned all the way to the right - to "blinding."

_As a matter of fact, there are some things I'd like to say to you, too, Edward._

I press my lips together and lift my chin. "Okay…yeah, let's talk."

**Chapter Three**

I follow Edward into his house, and I desperately wish someone would hand me a real shot of

something very strong right now. I also wish I'd had time to tell Peter where we were going,

because he must have seen us go into the house together. I worry about how that might have

appeared to him.

But Peter had his own chance to talk to Edward that day he ran into him in Newtons, and this is

my turn. Peter related the entire conversation to me, and at the time, my feelings were conflicted.

While I was thrilled that my boyfriend had laid into Edward, and done it thoroughly and well, I was

also resentful of him. After all, _I _was the one who got dumped.

And though I've fantasized about what I would say to Edward, if I had both the opportunity _and_

the nerve, now that the chance is here, I'm just a mess of sweaty palms and a thumping

heartbeat.

We wander through the house, looking for an empty place, but this party has grown so large that

almost every area is already occupied by people. Behind a closed door near the kitchen is a small

room Esme uses as a workspace and personal library, and it's empty. Under a window that opens

onto the patio are two big matching armchairs, and Edward gestures toward them.

He leans forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, hands folded together. "I'm not sure there are

enough words in the English language to apologize to you the way you deserve, Bella." His voice

is low, and he still says my name, _Bella_, the way her used to. Drawing it out to two separate and

distinct syllables, as if he's slipping into another language. "I handled things very badly, and I hurt

you, and I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."

I don't how to reply. I have no idea. Certainly not "I forgive you, Edward," because I'm very happy

now, and I'm not sure I'm even in a place anymore that requires me to forgive him, however that's

done. I can't fault his word choices, because as apologies go, that one was direct and made no

excuses – and it even sounded sincere.

"Please say something, Bella, even if it's just to call me an asshole for what I did to you."

_What he did to me… _I doubt there is any effective way for me to make him really understand that.

I'm different now, and so much time has passed. I'm whole. I know who I am…know what I need

and what I deserve.

But he _did _ask, didn't he?

"Okay, you were an asshole. Would you like to know why?"

The expression on his face is priceless. The old me, the one he knew, would never have given an

answer that direct, that blunt.

"First, you withdrew from me, leaving me to worry about every text you didn't send and every

message of mine that went unanswered. You poisoned my faith in you and our relationship, and

you did it slowly, in small doses."

I sound so calm that I'm not even sure it's me speaking_._

"Bella -"

"But that's really not the worst part of it. You also left me to doubt the truth of everything you ever

told me. I waited, Edward, just like you asked. I waited for that picture-perfect vision you had of

our life together, away from Forks and settled at college. But you didn't wait for _me_, Edward. You

got there first and decided that your vision had no place for me in it, after all. And if you could lie

to me about what you wanted our future to be, why the hell should I believe anything else you told

me?"

He sits in the chair, his folded hands under his chin, staring forward. He taps his two raised index

fingers against his mouth. "Back then I thought I knew what was best for us. Other kids in school,

they jumped right into sex, and then ended up screwing around on each other. It got to the point

where it seemed like none of it mattered to them anymore. I wanted us to be different, Bella. We

were better than that – what _we _had was so much better than that. It was more than sex, and I

thought we could prove that."

"And that, right there? That's the worst part, Edward. _You _made the decisions. You got to decide

all of the boundaries of our relationship, and as if that wasn't enough, you got to decide how it

would end, too. You got to say your piece, but you even did that on your own terms… just a oneway

communication over the Internet. You sent me an email - a fucking _email_, Edward." He

cringes slightly at my vocabulary, and in the past, I would have apologized for it.

But not now, not when all of my anger is pouring out like storm water through a culvert. This feels

like lancing a boil, and how did I ever think I'd have nothing to say to him?

His shoulders sag forward, and he slowly shakes his bowed head. The whole effect of this

posture makes him look weary, older, and now I feel sorry for him. And _that_, more than anything,

is something I never thought I would ever feel for Edward Cullen.

"You'll never know how sorry I am about all the mistakes I've made with you, Bella. The way I…

the way I wrecked us." He looks up, meeting my eyes. "But I am. I swear I am."

We're silent for a long while, but oddly, it's not an uncomfortable silence for me. Perhaps we just

know each other that well, or maybe I still don't think he deserves any sort of statement of

absolution from me. And maybe he knows it, too.

I stare out the window at the tables on the lawn, filled with classmates and their families, all

laughing, eating, and drinking. They're celebrating the end of something, even as they anticipate

the beginning of something else.

I see Jasper sitting next to Peter now, and the two are having what appears to be a subdued

conversation, Peter rotating his beer bottle back and forth slowly between his palms. At one point,

he turns away to look at the house, and I wonder what thoughts are going through his head. And

even more than wondering about them, I worry. Worry that he's sitting there needlessly fearing

that Edward will talk me into giving him another chance.

I need to get back to Peter. I need him to know that any such fears are as groundless as clouds

that move across the sky on swift currents of air.

Reluctantly, I turn away from the window and look at Edward. "Listen, I'm not saying this to make

you feel better, but I'm very happy right now. You should know that. And this isn't to make you

feel worse, either, but at least ten times a day, I think I'm the luckiest girl on the planet to have

someone like Peter."

"You're both lucky then." Underneath his politeness, I hear something else: longing, or perhaps a

little envy. His statement hangs in the air a bit longer than it should. Maybe other people might

take it as cue to offer sympathy or condolence. _Well, I'm sure the right person is out there for you,_

_too. _Again, I'm not at all inclined to comfort him.

"Alice told me you changed your mind about Washington, that you're going to Northwestern now."

"Yes. After you…after things changed last fall, I began to rethink what I wanted, and I decided to

see if I could get into Medill, the journalism school there. I didn't expect to, but I didn't want to

always wonder, you know? I was more shocked than anyone else when they accepted me."

"_I'm _not surprised. You're a very good writer."

"So, how did your first year go?" I ask him, changing the subject because I need to steer us away

from the thin ice of kindness.

"It was…eye-opening. I learned about a lot more than what they taught me in classes. It was like

moving to another country, in some ways. I mean, Forks is an okay place, as small towns go, but

compared to a big university? You're suddenly surrounded by experience, and diversity, and - it's

just intense. I thought I was smart, but at Forks, I was swimming in a very small pond. There, I'm

thrown in with kids who came out of prep schools, or went to the top high schools in the country.

No matter what you think about anything, there's someone around who wants to debate you

about it."

While Edward speaks, his whole body language changes. His eyes are no longer sad, his posture

loosens, and he emphasizes his words with gesturing hands.

"College changes you, Bella. The whole experience will make you think again - and think

differently - about so many things that you thought you knew."

"You say that like a warning, Edward. Like it's not entirely a good thing."

"No, I don't mean that. I'm excited for you, because another world is about to open." He shakes

his head, chastising himself. "But you've been hearing that all day. And now I should let you get

back to your family."

"Yes. I need to go."

Whether or not he intended it to, Edward's speech about the "experience" of college rings for me

like a warning.

He stands and extends his hand to me, but then withdraws it quickly, sliding it back into the

pocket of his khakis. There was a time when such a moment of awkwardness would have been a

hit to my self-esteem, but now it only adds to my sympathy for him.

When we get back out to the patio, we pause a moment, and this time the silence is clearly

uncomfortable, maybe because when we say goodbye this time, we'll be doing it face-to-face.

"One more thing to ask?" He clears his throat and I answer with silence.

"It's too much to expect, I know, for us to be friends right now. But, could we at least be…civil

acquaintances? It's a small town, Bella. I just don't want all of this awkwardness whenever we run

into each other this summer."

I nod, my lips set in a tight line. I can be civil. I can do that.

"Have a good summer, Edward."

"You too."

I turn and step off the slate patio, onto the carpet of green lawn. I don't look back at Edward.

Maybe he's still standing there; maybe he's not. The point is, it doesn't matter. Now that he and I

have talked, now that things are out in the open, there are no loose ends. My grieving for what we

had together was over some time ago; now it's my anger that's been laid to rest.

Across the lawn, I join Mom and Phil and Peter. I slip my hand into his.

"Everything okay?" he asks.

I look up into his eyes, impossibly blue against the contrast of his dark lashes. His brows are knit

together, a canyon of worry running between them. Again, he's asking if I'm okay, but this time I

think he really means "are we okay?"

I squeeze his hand firmly and keep my eyes in unflinching contact with his. "Yes. Everything is

very okay," I answer firmly, with a smile as an underscore.

My mother pulls me into an embrace and says quietly into my hair, "I know." I nod as she lets go

of me, because I completely believe her.

Families have a tendency to get all up in your business, and mine is no different. On the plus

side, however, their timing is occasionally perfect. And so, without asking for anyone's

agreement, Charlie decides it's time for us to leave. No one protests.

We make the rounds of the party, offering thanks and goodbyes. I promise Esme that I won't be a

stranger this summer, but Alice already told that me Edward has a summer job at Forks

Community Hospital, so my promise is more than likely a well-intentioned lie.

That evening, we have dinner out with Mom and Phil, at which Peter puts the finishing touches on

his wildly successful campaign to win over my mother. By time the graduation ceremony was

over, she was probably already a fan of Peter's; after a meal laced with his funny anecdotes and

infused with his charm, Renee is as smitten as I am.

Outside the restaurant, we wish Mom and Phil goodnight, and Peter and I are finally free of all

social obligations.

I call Charlie, and with unabashed directness, I tell him I'm going over to Peter's for a while, and

no, I don't know when I will be home. To my surprise, he sounds resigned to this. I wonder if he

recognizes that things are different now: not only am I eighteen, I've graduated from high school.

In just two months, I'll be off to college and making my own decisions about how late I stay out

and where.

At Peter's apartment, we both collapse, exhausted from an entire day of conversation. I change

into an old pair of gym shorts and a baggy tee, part of the stash of old clothes that have

accumulated at Peter's apartment over the last six or seven months. I leave on the strand of

pearls, which I touch frequently. I love their smooth, cool feel between the pads of my fingers.

Peter opens a bottle of wine and we sprawl on the sofa, replaying the day and offering our own

commentary.

He doesn't come right out and ask where Edward and I disappeared to this afternoon, but I think

he must be curious. My history with Edward has followed us around like a wad of gum stuck to

the bottom of my shoe. I'd like to think that most of it fell off today. My foot certainly feels lighter.

When I recount the entire conversation with Edward to Peter, he alternates between openmouthed

surprise and fist-bumps. I find myself reflecting back his amusement, acting all cocksure,

full of attitude and non-regret.

And I should have known that he wouldn't let me get away with that.

As I recline, my back to his chest, he massages my shoulders and my upper arms and I'm

sleepily blissful. "When you came across the lawn," he begins, "you looked a little sad. I was

worried, B, thinking he'd upset you."

"Well, it hit me, as I walked away from him, that we had just said a real goodbye, finally. And it felt

a bit like a death. It was like we finally put to rest something that had been dead for a while but

never properly buried. And that realization made me sad."

"I get that. The end of a relationship is a loss of its own kind."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you where I was," I say, my hand rubbing the long muscle of Peter's thigh. "I

was worried about how it might have looked to you."

"I trusted you, B, though I certainly don't trust him. My biggest worry was that he was in there

somewhere, trying to re-hash the whole breakup with you." He rubs the back of his neck hard,

and I hear a few vertebrae pop.

I twist around to look at him. "What do you mean you don't trust him?"

"I think he still loves you, Bella."

"No," I say, emphatically. "No, he might actually feel sorry about what he did last year, but -"

"Bella, I saw him look at you at graduation. When you walked past him during the procession, he

never took his eyes off you. And while he talked to you on the patio, he had this expression on his

face, like…like you were a Christmas window at Macy's."

I shake my head. "That's just...ridiculous," I sputter.

"I know hungry when I see it, Bella," he says, swallowing a mouthful of wine. "It was all I could do

to stay in my chair and watch him from across that lawn."

I've heard enough. I remove the glass from his hands and drain the rest in one large gulp, before

setting it down on the coffee table. Twisting around completely, I lie down on top of his torso, and

the buttons from his shirt press uncomfortably into my chest. I frame Peter's head between my

hands because he needs to hear me.

"I don't care what goes on in Edward's head, Peter. I'm not spending a single second more of my

life wondering why he did what he did, or if he regrets it – or even if my happiness makes him

miserable."

Carefully, I pull off his glasses and set those down, too, then rake my fingers through the top of

his dark hair. His eyes close at my touch. "I love you. You're everything I need. And you're all I

want now."

Peter pulls my face to his and drops kisses on my forehead and under both of my eyes. "I love

you, too," he breathes into my mouth before he covers it with his own. I fall into his kiss as if I

stepped off a precipice during a dream, and there is no bottom in sight.

When we pull apart, I look into his eyes and wish he could read my thoughts so that I don't have

to risk sounding so needy. "We have two months," I say, swallowing back my emotion, "and it's

going to go by so fast. I need this time to be about you and me. Okay?"

"You and me," he agrees, and I sit back up onto my knees, so that I can unfasten the buttons on

his shirt, pulling it out of his jeans when I reach the last few. I feel his eyes on my face while I

work open the zipper on his jeans.

He lifts my shirt over my head and drops it on the floor, and his hands cover my breasts,

squeezing, working my nipples until I squirm, agitated and frustrated, against him.

We help each out of the rest of our clothes, with frequent breaks to explore each new area of

exposed skin.

Peter settles me back on top of him, his hands on my hips. As I look down, I can't help but return

his smile.

"I'm a lucky girl, you know." I grind against him, holding onto his shoulders.

"Why's that?"

"Because my boyfriend likes me on top."

One side of his mouth curves up. "No, your boyfriend _loves _you on top," he says. "As well as

underneath, up against the wall, and bent over the back of the sofa, and…_Jesus_, Bella, that feels

incredible. Please, before you kill me…"

I lift up slightly and reach for him, taking his hardness into my hand to guide him inside. His hands

settle again on my hips and he lowers me down onto him slowly. "God, you feel good," he groans,

and I do the same.

"You mention religion a lot during sex."

"That's because I'm so close to heaven when you're on top of me like this," he shoots back, still a

fast draw with the words. "Plus, my hands are free to do this." He works one of my nipples

between his fingers. "And this…" he adds, as he uses his other hand to pull my head down, so he

can bury his tongue in my mouth.

"Now move," he whispers, and I do. As I work faster over him, I feel myself take an early lead.

The sensations, the pressure against my clit as I come back down on him pushes me to want

more, always more. But when I look back for Peter, to find where he is, I slow my pace.

He smiles, his eyes half closed. "I'm praying right now, as a matter of fact."

"About what?" I manage to ask, before giving way to a low moan from the intense sensation.

"About how unbelievably sexy you look up there. And how much I love you."

I touch my fingers to his lips, and they part. I slip my index finger between them, onto the warm,

wet cushion of his tongue.

With a practiced hand, Peter finds that spot where my reserves are kept and I cross the finish line

first.

Or maybe it's too close to call, as Peter finishes too, head thrown back and eyes closed, lost in

his own version of sweet victory.

I collapse onto his chest and bury my head into his neck, leaving him kisses under his jaw. "I love

you."

Peter kisses the top of my head. With a finger, he traces a line down the side of my face and

along my throat, stopping at my strand of pearls. He lifts them between his fingers and brushes

them against my lips. "The sea has its pearls, the heaven has its stars, but my heart…my heart

has its love.'"

"That's beautiful. Did you write that?"

He laughs. "Hell, no. It's Heinrich Heine, and I think I just butchered it, but it was the only thing

about pearls that I could think of."

"Why pearls? I mean, I love them, and I wish I didn't ever have to take them off, but I _am _curious."

Peter rests his warm palm against my throat. "I think they're classic, and understated, and I

thought they would look perfect around this gorgeous neck."

I thank him again with a kiss.

"And I think it's fascinating," he continues, "the way that pearls are made: hidden away, forming

slowly over time, until someone opens the shell and there it is, beautiful and completely unique."

I work my arms under his shoulders and hold him to me tightly, my throat suddenly too closed to

speak.

How will I ever make it, being apart from this man who has the heart and soul of a poet, and the

mouth and hands of a magician?

**Chapter Four**

_July_

Charlie has the morning off, so he's available to help me load all of the pies and cakes into the

cab of my truck. They have to be delivered to Flanagan's before they open for lunch. I've been up

since 5:00 baking, and as of 10:00 am, my workday is officially over. When Jean Flanagan

offered me a job making desserts for her restaurant, I thought she had to be joking. I didn't know

that Mrs. Flanagan even knew who I was, much less that I enjoyed being elbow-deep in flour.

It turns out that Charlie and Peter were talking about my pies one night when my dad stopped by

Flanagan's to "check on the peace." Jean's husband Mike, who runs the pub side of the business,

overheard them. He told Jean, who has a long-standing, bitter rivalry with Fran Jameson, who

owns the Forks Diner.

Now Jean Flanagan can boast about offering homemade desserts, too - in addition to a dozen

different beers on tap.

Life in a small town; it seems everyone has a back-story.

While I'm lucky to have a summer job that pays me for doing something I like, it leaves me little

time with Peter, since we work on opposite sides of the clock. At least we're able to sync our days

off, and when Charlie has to work an evening shift, I'll meet Peter at work for his dinner break.

In one sense, the time apart passes slowly, but in another, it moves by much too quickly, as I go

from missing him during the nights he has to tend bar, to wondering how the summer itself can

slip away so easily. Already we're nearing the end of July.

I leave for Northwestern in three and a half weeks.

That evening, as Charlie sets the dinner table and I pull the meatloaf from the oven, our usual

easy silence feels heavier. I steal glances at my dad, trying to read the words in his creased

brow, the unspoken worry that pulls the corners of his mouth down. Charlie always looks older

when he's keeping something from me.

This is uncharted territory for me and I'm clueless about how to draw him out. "Your hair's getting

long, Dad."

"Yeah. I thought I'd stop by Alvin's at lunch tomorrow…see if he can work me in."

The silence persists as we fix our plates. I hate awkwardness of any kind while I'm eating; it

blocks my ability to taste anything. It's just one of the reasons why, when I first moved to Forks,

my father and I often read or watched TV while we ate dinner.

"You're quiet," I tell him. "Even for you."

Charlie pushes the green beans around a bit on his plate, and then puts his fork down. He rests

his balled-up hands under his chin and looks straight ahead. "It's getting closer to August 23," he

says.

"I know." I suspected that was at least part of why he seemed down lately. Telling him that I

wanted to go to Northwestern instead of UW resulted in one of the biggest arguments we'd ever

had. He blamed Peter, said it was wrong of me to pick a school based on its proximity to my

boyfriend's school. I denied that, telling him that I had applied to get into the Medill School at NW

long before I knew that Peter and I would be a long-term thing.

And then I reminded him that at one time, a boy really had been the main reason for applying to

Washington.

"I have these arguments with myself," Charlie says. "On the one hand, I'm proud of you for getting

into that school. Peter said it's a top school for journalism, and they take only the best. And you

deserve a place like that, Bells, because you're smart and I know you have talent."

I swallow down the thickening in my throat. We've never talked much about my future, about

career aspirations and such. As a non-custodial parent for fifteen years, I wondered if it was

another in a long list of subjects that he didn't feel qualified to talk about with me.

"But I also wish you weren't going so far away, either. Airfare from Chicago is expensive, and you

won't be able to get home nearly as often. I've only had you here…" He stops, his mouth twisting,

a small movement that's exaggerated by his dark mustache. "For a couple of years," he finishes.

I take a bite of my meatloaf, now flavorless.

For a long time, I had been perfectly capable of functioning as an adult. I had felt like one for

years, in fact, with both of my parents. But I only covered the easy things, like cooking and

cleaning and being the organized one. I didn't even attempt what I imagine are the harder parts of

parenting, like talking about conflicted feelings, or how much we all needed each other. About

change, and letting go.

I rest my hand on his forearm. "I've got enough in savings so that I can come home at a

moment's notice, Dad. And there's always the phone and email. We'll be in touch all the time,

you'll see."

Picking up his fork again, he nods, and we embark on another stretch of silence, and this one

lasts for the rest of dinner.

Charlie helps me clear the table, but then surprises me by staying in the kitchen and drying the

dishes.

When I was old enough to notice such things, I had been shocked that he didn't have a

dishwasher. Who didn't have a _dishwasher_? "No wonder you don't have a wife," I had said, a

tactless nine year-old visiting a man she hardly knew. He handed me the dishtowel and silently

walked out of the kitchen. I never again mentioned appliances or a wife to my dad.

"Tomorrow's Peter's night off," I say, breaking the quiet. "I thought we could grill some

hamburgers here. Sound okay?"

"Sure. Why don't you ask Alice and...what's his name?"

"Jasper?"

"Right. Ask them, too."

"Okay. Thanks, Dad." I smile, plunging another pan into the soapy dishwater. Alice being here will

be good for Charlie; the two of them kid around constantly, insulting each other like a bad

vaudeville act. Alice is one of my Dad's favorite people. And while it's true that she might annoy

the hell out of many, it's also true that nothing makes her happier than making other people smile.

And this Alice does for my Dad, in spades.

As he's sorting the silverware into the drawer, he asks, "Bella?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you going to be okay…when Peter goes back east?"

I almost drop the pan I'm rinsing. A question like this from my father is so far out of character for

him that I turn to him, to make sure he's still Charlie.

"I…I'll miss him…" I look out the window above the sink, into our little backyard. A chickadee flits

to the bird feeder, exposing itself to the open before flying back to the safety of a shrub on the

edge of the yard. It makes the trip twice before I figure out how to answer my father.

"We've spent a lot of time together this summer. I think the change will be hard."

"It always is," Charlie says.

"But I think I know what you're asking, Dad. Am I afraid? Do I worry that he'll do the same thing

Edward did last year?"

Leaning back against the counter, he crosses his arms and shrugs. "I guess that's what I meant."

"Honestly, yes. I've let my head go there a few times." I fix him with a pointed look. "It should go

without saying, though, that Peter is not Edward."

"I know that, Bella. And despite the way I act probably sometimes, I do like him. He's made you

very happy. And everyone at Flanagan's respects the hell out of him."

Charlie doesn't throw compliments around lightly, and I reward my dad for those last ones with a

stupid grin. It kills me, though, to know that the memory of how badly Edward hurt me is still so

clear in my father's mind. To know that he _still _worries about my emotional state just twists the

knife around a little harder.

"And two other things are also different," I continue. "_I'm _going away too, this time – and to

somewhere I've only dreamed of going. That's scary right there. And I'll be busy at school, with so

much work to do, that I won't be sitting around waiting for phone calls and text messages."

My dad looks directly at me, waiting, his patience a weapon that he wields with as much as

accuracy as he does his service revolver.

"And I'm not the same girl who came here two years ago," I say, putting weight behind my words,

because above all else, he needs to believe this part. "I have a sense of myself and my own

identity that I didn't have last fall. And that identity is not connected to anyone else, it's not

dependent on anyone else's approval, the way it was when I was with Edward."

Shaking the water from my hands, I reach for a paper towel. "I'm different now," I tell him, drying

them off. "I'm ready." Wadding the paper into a ball, I shoot for the trashcan at the end of the

counter. As always, it bounces off the rim.

Charlie pushes off from the counter and rubs the top of my head once. "Okay, then." His smile is

small; just one side of that mustache moves. "I guess you are," he says, and then heads for the

living room. "Still a bad shot, though."

**~ O ~**

I highlight the last two sentences for the third time, and stab the delete key with my index finger.

I'm frustrated with all of it, the whole stupid, fucking…thing. I'd been working on the chapter for

two weeks, and this particular scene for at least two hours. It still sounds forced...hackneyed and

amateurish.

I want so badly to be finished with this chapter that I seriously consider getting drunk to see if it

will help. Scratching the stubble on my chin, I glance at the clock and see that it isn't even 1:00

pm yet...a bit too early to start pouring the tequila.

I pick up my phone and send Bella a text, even though I know she's down at the beach with her

friends.

_Fucking chapter._

A few minutes later my phone buzzes.

_Remember what I said._

Even though Bella and I talk about writing a lot, both hers and mine, I need more of a memory

jog. I reply with something brilliant: _Uh?_

_Just tell the truth, _she answers.

I look from the phone to the screen on my laptop, and I read the last few paragraphs again. She's

right: I haven't been telling the truth. I've been putting thoughts into my main character's head that

are mostly bullshit; they sound edgy, but no one _really _sounds like that internally.

I exhale, frustrated by the time I've wasted – but I'm also relieved, because I now see what's

wrong with this section.

What do you get when someone majoring in Econ and minoring in Statistics tries to write a novel?

Lies, damn lies – and apparently, a piece of shit chapter.

I grab my phone again_: You're right. I love you. Come here and finish writing this for me._

_LOL. Yeah, that sounds like fun. Not._

_Might be. If you were naked while you wrote it._

_I doubt we'd get anything done._

_Nope, just you._

_Ha ha. Now finish it, grab your board, and get down here._

_So bossy. And so hot._

The phone rings while I'm texting, and I curse my father and his unbelievably bad timing. I have a

choice: I can send him to voicemail, or I can spend a few minutes dodging his questions and

_mmhmm-ing _his advice and not have to deal with him again for another few weeks.

I hit Talk.

"Hey, Dad."

"Peter, did you send that check for the deposit and first month's rent yet?" Even on a Saturday

afternoon, my father's tone is crisp.

_Hello to you too, Dad. I'm fine. Thanks for asking._

"It went out today," I lie.

"You really should have sent it earlier. You know apartments that close to campus are hard to

get."

"Yes, you're right." With my father, it usually makes for a shorter conversation if you just admit,

right up front, that he knows far more than you do about pretty much everything in the fucking

universe.

"Have you finished packing yet?"

"Dad, I have another month here," I say, closing my laptop.

"Yes, but you have a lot to pack. All of those books that you drag around with you."

"I'm comfortable with the progress I'm making," I tell him, slipping into a tone that mirrors his own.

In truth, I haven't started packing yet.

"By the way, Peter, I was talking to Tom Lesker at Blackman-Anderson yesterday."

"Oh?" I say with complete politeness, but the hair stands up on the back of my neck. Blackman-

Anderson is one of the biggest investment banks in the world, and Tom Lesker is an old friend of

my father's from his days on Wall Street.

Before he secured a position teaching Business at the University of Washington, my father

managed one of the biggest, most successful mutual funds of the 1990s. He lived in New York

during most of the week, flying home to Forks for long weekends with my mother and me, since

my mother refused to give up her own position teaching Statistics at Peninsula College. He did

this from the time I was six until I was fourteen, after which he moved to Seattle to be closer to his

job at UW. My mother stayed with me in Forks until I graduated from high school, and then she

found a teaching position in Seattle.

"And how is old Tom these days?" I say.

"He's now BA's Director of Global Investment Research."

_Shit. _I know now where this conversation is going. I should have sent him to voicemail.

"Tom hires twenty interns each summer to work on his research teams. A lot of digging and

number crunching and reporting data, that sort of thing." He pauses, and when he continues, his

voice is lower, smoother. "It's a chance for you to get an inside view of the world of finance, Peter,

a view you'll never get from your classes and your course work. I told him you'd be applying."

My pulse begins pounding in my ears. "Dad, why did you tell him that? I have no idea what I'm

doing next summer. It's a long way off." This is both the literal truth and yet another lie; I have

every intention of returning to Forks at the end of this school year. It's where I found Bella. It's

where the words came back.

"At the end of the summer, a few of the interns are usually offered a permanent position with BA

contingent on graduating," he continues. "You'll have to pass your Series Seven, of course, but

they'll help you prepare for it, so that's mostly a formality."

"I… wait…_Jesus_, Dad. I told you I didn't know what I was planning to do. Can you listen to me, for

just one minute?"

"I heard every word, Peter." His tone infuriates me; it's devoid of anger or indignation. After a

pause, he continues, "Do you have another plan for next summer that you haven't told me about?

Another lead or contact?"

"No."

"Do you even have a plan at all, Peter?"

I push the heavy silence back through the phone at my father.

And I wait.

From the other end, he finally sighs, deep and long. It's a good thing he's in Seattle and not

standing in front of me because I hate his sighs more than any words that might come from his

mouth. They are judgment and condescension, his sighs. They spring from a parental exhaustion

that he's never once earned.

I break the silence. "Alright. Email his contact information to me."

"I'll do that." Again, he pauses. "Remember, Peter, you're going back to Penn as a junior. This is

the year that you start planning for what comes next. Either you secure a position somewhere

after graduation, or you do the Masters program at Wharton."

"Mmm hmm," I reply, opening my laptop again.

"What did you say?"

"Yes. Thank you." My eyes drift across the screen in front of me, reading my words but not

hearing them. "I need to go, Dad. I have to get to the store. I'm out of moving boxes."

We exchange cordial goodbyes, but not before he reminds me once more to email Tom Lesker's

people. Without fail, he must have the last word.

Still holding my phone, I cock my arm back and pretend it's a baseball that I need to return to the

pitcher, out there on the mound. I hurl it into the sofa on the other side of the room.

Grabbing a beer from the fridge, I sit back down at my desk and read over the last few

paragraphs of the chapter, one hand in my hair.

But I can't let go of the weight, that pulling sensation we all feel on our brains sometimes. The

one that makes it hard to focus on anything else because you just can't shake the feeling that

there's something you need to do. Everything else you try to accomplish is dragged down by that

weight.

I shut the laptop harder than I should and chug the rest of the beer. Grabbing my keys and wallet,

I pull my gear bag from the closet, the one that holds my wetsuit.

I head for the beach, where both Bella and the waves are the only things that can separate me

from the weight.

**Chapter Five**

_August_

I slide _Mansfield Park _into the last available space in the moving box, and then tape it shut. Using

my teeth to uncap the red Sharpie, I get a strong whiff of the ink, that chemical scent that I've

come to associate with moving my stuff from one home to another. Before she married Phil, Mom

and I moved every few years as she struggled to find better schools and nicer apartments for us. I

resented the changes and hated the attention foisted on me as "the new girl."

I label the top of the box with my name and "Miss Austen." I can't take all of my books with me to

Northwestern, but neither can I leave Jane behind; she has things to teach me about the world

and the people in it, despite the fact that she died almost 200 years ago.

I think about that novel's heroine, young Fannie Price, going off to live with her wealthy, titled aunt

and uncle at Mansfield Park - the classic story of a poor relation trying to improve her

circumstances. At least Fannie would meet the love of her life there; I'm getting ready to say

goodbye to mine.

In three days I leave for Chicago and Northwestern University. Over the last week I've said

goodbye to most of my friends as they head out on their own where-to's and what-ifs: Jasper

goes back to Austin, to his math program at UT, while Alice is headed to UCLA to study film.

It's change again, but this time I'm not a petulant little girl digging my heels in as I fight against it.

This time, it's scary and wonderful and my arms are open – though, admittedly, I'm counting on

school to help fill the space in them that used to be taken up with Peter.

He doesn't have to be at Penn for another week and half, but some of that time Peter will spend

on the road, getting there. I'm riding as far as Chicago with him, in the U-Haul truck he rented to

transport his things, his Subaru in tow behind it. He says it'll take four days to get there, and I am

stupidly excited to be going with him.

Charlie pokes his head into my bedroom. "Almost ready to go, Bells?"

I look around at my room, my desk cleared off, the bookshelves half-emptied. Plastic bins full of

clothes and bedding are stacked on floor, at the foot of my bed. I look at the curtains and realize

that I never did get around to replacing them after I moved here, as Charlie had suggested.

"Almost," I answer. "Just a few more clothes to pack, once the laundry is done."

He looks at me blankly. "I meant dinner. Flanagan's. We're going to meet Peter?"

"Oh." I shake my head, embarrassed. "Sorry. My head, it's… somewhere else."

"Well, see if you can find it, okay?" he says. "I'm hungry."

"And that would be different how?" I answer, meeting his deadpan with sarcasm.

Charlie points his index finger at me. "You and me, kid. Eight-ball, after dinner."

I narrow my eyes. "Oh, you are going _down_, Chief."

**~O~**

While I tend my section of the long bar, I keep one eye on the front door, waiting for Bella and the

Chief to walk in. They're meeting me for dinner. While I take my break, Nicole, the other

bartender working tonight, will cover the entire bar herself. If we gets busier and Nicole finds

herself "in the weeds," Mike, the owner, will help out. A favorite with our customers, Nicole is a

dynamo behind the bar, full of energy and always quick with jokes and her husky, infectious

laughter.

We're busy for a Wednesday night, and the bar is full. By 7:45, however, the dinner rush is over,

leaving a lot of empty tables. Our head waitress, Michele, sends the other waitress home and

says she'll close the dining room herself.

A few minutes before 8:00, the Chief walks in with Bella right behind him. Charlie is greeted by

the usual chorus of "Hey, Chief!" and back slaps, while Bella smiles patiently, comfortable in her

father's shadow. I honestly don't think about Bella's age very often, but whenever she walks into

this place, she immediately appears younger to me. I get protective and possessive, and it's all I

can do to stay behind the bar and watch her from a distance.

I'm a different person here at work, not unlike an actor playing several roles at once. I entertain, I

flirt. I talk baseball and football. I'm a confidante for more than a few sad and lonely people in this

town. When Bella walks into Flanagan's, it's like my other life – the one with her, the one that

matters - is about to be tainted by something cynical and a little dark.

I wave to Bella and Charlie and then signal to Michele. She picks up two menus and goes over to

greet them, giving Bella a quick hug. She smiles up at the Chief a bit flirtatiously, and not for the

first time I wonder if Michele will be the woman to finally break through his bachelor's shell.

She shows them to a booth in the back and then brings me their drink orders. Before I leave to

join them, I pour two sodas for Bella and me and a draft for her father.

Over club sandwiches, Bella's father visibly relaxes, and we talk about the Mariners' season and

what the pike and trout have been biting on lately. Seated close to me, Bella's thigh presses

against my own, and when I lean back, my left arm stretched across the back of the booth, she

fits neatly against my side.

We don't talk about what's happening in three days. Charlie hasn't asked about the route we're

taking to Chicago, or where we plan to stop each night, or the number of hotel rooms we're

getting. I'm beginning to believe that he isn't going to.

Bill Crowley saunters up to our booth, pool cue in hand, and asks Charlie if he's up for a game of

pool.

"Sorry. Bella and I are going to play. She needs to learn some respect for her elders," he says,

glancing at me with a conspiratorial smirk.

Bella rolls her eyes. "No, no. Go ahead, Dad," she says, jerking her head in the direction of the

pool table. "If you get a warm up in first, we might actually have…you know… a _real _game. For a

change."

Bill lets out a low whistle. "Day-um, Charlie."

I give Bella a fist bump and the Chief points his finger in my face. "Don't. Do not encourage her."

He tosses his wallet on the table and tells Bella to use his credit card to pay the check. "All right,

rack 'em up," he orders Bill, as the two head for the pool table.

"That's a pretty fat wallet your father carries," I say, as Bella opens it to fish out Charlie's Visa

card.

"Sure is," she replies. "This thing's as heavy as my purse." Inside the wallet is a section for

photos, and it appears to be full of them.

"That's why," I say. "Look at all of the pictures he's carrying around."

"This has every school picture I've ever taken," Bella says softly, a little awestruck as she flips

through the plastic photo sleeves. "Kindergarten… first grade – look, no front teeth… ugh, fifth

grade… we moved to a new suburb of Phoenix that year and I had to switch schools." She goes

silent, her face changing expression with each photo. "Mom must have sent these to him every

year."

"Here, let me see," I ask, holding out my hand. It feels wrong to go looking through the Chief's

wallet, but I want badly to see this photographic timeline of her life. The awkward, fake smiles.

The braces, the bad haircuts.

I flip through the snap shots of Bella, glancing up at her every so often. I marvel not just at the

similarities of the little girl in the pictures to the beautiful young woman next to me, but at the

differences as well. The eyes of the little girl in these pictures are too old for her face. In some of

them she's wistful, in others a bit lonely. They don't match the posed smiles on her face.

But that mismatch is gone now, and if anything, she's grown into those eyes. Bella's one of those

kids who grew up too fast, presenting a serious face to most of the world and saving her lighthearted,

silly moments for a select few.

Right now, she's looking off at the pool table, watching her Dad line up a shot. Bill says

something I can't hear, but it makes the Chief pause and laugh. In turn, Bella smiles, her chin

resting on her hand.

The last picture in Charlie's wallet is of the two of them outside the high school, right after

graduation. Bella's in her cap and gown, and their arms are around each other's waists as they

both smile and squint into the sun.

With sudden shame, I realize that I haven't given more than a few passing thoughts to how much

Charlie Swan's world will change in just a few days.

When we leave, Bella and I will have big cities, full course-loads, and Skype.

Charlie will have Forks, and an empty house, and instant coffee in the mornings.

Gently, I take Bella's hand, the one still supporting her chin. "B, I have an idea."

"Yeah?" She turns to me, bringing her loving smile along with her.

"I think it would mean a lot to your father if he drove you to school instead of me. I think he should

have some more time with you. He deserves that."

Caught off guard by this idea, she stares at me with her mouth open. "What? But you and I are

riding together...in the truck."

"If he can get the other guys to cover his shifts for a few days, you and he can drive my car – your

stuff will fit in it – and then he can fly back to Forks."

"One-way plane tickets are expensive, Peter. He doesn't have that kind of money."

"I've got the miles," I tell her. I have more frequent flyer miles than I can use, thanks to my

parents setting up an account for me years ago. "I'll buy the ticket and transfer it to him. It's the

least I can do, if he's driving my car all the way out there."

She pulls her hand from mine and folds it up with her other one. "I don't know. I mean...we've had

it all planned for weeks."

"B, I'll follow you with the U-Haul and meet you at Northwestern. We'll have a couple of days

together there, and then I can tow the car behind the truck the rest of the way to Penn."

I watch her face while she thinks over my plan, and I see her argument start to break around its

edges. She's silent for a time, chewing on an inside corner of her mouth.

"Stop that," I tell her. "You'll get a sore in your mouth, and I need your mouth to be fit and

healthy."

That gets a smile out of her, albeit a small one.

"I was looking forward to the time with you," she says. She picks up her napkin and wraps it

around her finger. "And the nights, too..." she adds quietly.

Except for the night of that ice storm last Christmas, Bella has never spent an entire night in my

bed, and though we don't speak of it, I know it saddens her. I see it on her face after we make

love, when we climb out of bed to dress. I feel it in her kiss, hear it in her soft "goodnight," as I put

her in her truck to go home.

_Great job, Bennett. Now you can throw a shovelful of guilt onto your little pile of shame_.

"Hey." I pull her chin toward me and make her look at my eyes, and then tuck her hair back

behind one ear. "I doubt you were looking forward to it more than as I was. I was all ready for

your morning breath and your rat's-nest of bed hair and how evil you can be before your coffee."

I kiss her softly on her bottom lip. She leans into my mouth, prolonging my kiss, and I can feel her

disappointment right there, underneath the need.

I wish there was more time to talk to her about this. I wish I didn't have a job that went until 2:00

in the morning. I wish I could crawl into her bed later and pull off her nightshirt and show her

exactly how much I was looking forward to those nights on the road.

I take her hand back between mine. "I'll be eleven hours away from you, B. I can drive that in a

day, easy. Your father won't see you again until Christmas." I let that fact sink in for a few long

moments. "Please, Bella. Let me do this for him."

"Okay." She swallows audibly and nods once. "Fine. But I want to see his face when you tell him.

You will score _major _points with this one, Peter."

"That's not why I'm doing it," I say quietly.

_Why _are _you doing it, then? _I ask myself, even though I know why.

From behind the bar, way up front, Mike bellows, "You planning to come back to work tonight,

Bennett, or what?" The bar must have gotten busier over my break.

"Fuck," I groan at the ceiling. There's never enough time.

I get up from the table, still holding Bella's hand. Before I let go of her, I lean down and kiss the

top of her head, turning my face to rest against the silky-soft of her hair for just a moment before I

straighten.

"You hanging around for a while with Charlie?" I ask her.

"Yes, he wanted to play a little pool after dinner."

"Good," I reply. "I'll try not to let your father catch me staring at your ass."

Bella rolls her eyes. She knows that I love watching her shoot pool, even if the sight of her

holding a pool cue and leaning over the table with that spectacular backside on display does do

potentially embarrassing things to my dick.

"Come sit at my end of the bar," I tell her. "We can tell him then."

**~O~**

When Peter tells Charlie his idea, I watch the emotions shift on my father's face, in a jerky sort of

way, as if he was an illustration in one of those flip-books that Renee and I used to make when I

was a kid. You would draw the same thing on each page, with small changes, and then riffle

through the pages quickly. The illustrations would appear to move, as if they were animated.

Charlie's initial surprise gives way to suspicion.

"Awfully late to be changing plans, isn't it?" he asks Peter. He says this in the same tone he uses

when he pulls over someone for driving too fast.

Peter picks up my dad's empty beer glass and pauses. Charlie nods and Peter refills it from the

tap.

Setting the beer down on a fresh napkin, Peter answers. "Yep. But not too late. I just wish I'd

thought of it sooner."

Charlie turns his attention to me, and I shift on my barstool. "What do you think, Bells?" he asks.

_I wish I'd thought of it myself_. Instead, I was carried away by the idea of a road trip with Peter.

"Dad, I'd really like it if you and I drove to Chicago. We could spend some good time together.

Between my crazy hours baking and your job, we haven't seen each other much the last month or

so."

Whatever his suspicions about the change in plans, he appears to be satisfied with our answers.

He asks for details of Peter's plan, and Peter's answers are both direct and to the point (for a

change.) I watch Charlie's features relax, as doubt gives way to acceptance, and finally, to

something I don't often see in my father: happy anticipation.

Peter pulls out his iPhone and hands it over to Charlie, and soon my dad and I are looking at

GoogleMaps and plotting our route to Chicago.

Charlie remembers that he has to be at the station first thing in the morning and we make our

rounds of goodbyes. It still takes him a good ten minutes to get out the door, as he runs the

gauntlet of handshakes and questions.

Peter and I exchange a long look when I get up to leave. When he tilts his head down slightly and

gives me that focused, intense stare, with just the barest hint of a dirty smile, it goes straight to

that area just south of my lower belly. I want to cross my legs and squeeze my thighs together in

an effort to contain all of that attraction I still feel for him. It's every bit as strong as the night I met

him, the night I handed him the shards of my heart and said "Here, make me feel again."

Peter leans on the bar with an elbow and crooks his finger at me, as if to pull me in and share a

secret. Into my ear he says, "What time does Charlie leave in the morning for his shift?"

His low tone makes me shiver, and I close my eyes. "About quarter to seven," I answer. I really

want to grab his hair and yank his mouth to mine but half the bar is probably watching us.

"Leave the front door unlocked," he says, and all I can do is nod now, because I'm not breathing

anymore.

He presses his lips to my ear again. "Goodnight."

It's just one word, but it Peter says it like it means other things, too. _I want you. And I'll show you_

_how much._

**~O~**

It's pouring rain, solid curtains of it, as I sprint from my car to the Swans' front door. I can barely

see through my glasses and the water runs in big drops from my hair into my eyes. My shirt is

plastered to my skin.

It's 7:00 a.m. and I haven't been to sleep yet. Once I decided what I wanted to do, I couldn't wind

down after work, so I made some coffee and managed to crank out a couple of thousand words.

I ease the door open and toe off my waterlogged sneakers. The air in the house is much cooler

than it is outside, and I get a chill standing there in my wet clothes. One of Bella's hooded

sweatshirts is draped over the back of the sofa and I grab it, drying off my glasses.

Through the doorway I can see her in the kitchen at the counter, rolling pie dough. She's got

music on, the Plain White Tee's "Rhythm of Love," and she's singing while she works, her voice

adorably off-key. She pauses to take a sip from her coffee mug, its handle covered in flour.

_She's going to kill me for this. She's going to scream, and jump out of her skin, and spin around_

_and smack the shit out of my chest with the heel of her hand._

It hurts like hell when she does that.

I walk quietly into the kitchen and wait until she sets her mug down on the counter, reaching for

the rolling pin.

"You're saved by that rolling pin, you know. I was planning to jump you, but I see you're armed."

She startles and spins around, a flour-covered hand flying to her chest and leaving a faint imprint,

like the hand of Saruman. The shocked look on her face is priceless, but it's quickly replaced by a

sly grin.

"I'm not armed at the moment, though."

In three long steps, I cross the kitchen and lift her off the floor, against my chest.

"Oh my god!" she shrieks, "You're soaking wet – and _cold_!"

"Not for long," I reply, setting her on her feet again and nudging her back against the kitchen

counter with my chest. Trapping her with my arms, I lean close to her face but don't kiss her

mouth. Not yet.

"You have flour on your chin...right there. Let me get it." I kiss it away. "Oh, look. More over here."

I kiss one side of her throat, right over her pulse point, pressing my tongue against her skin

before I let go.

Bella moans softly and hooks her fingers into my belt loops, pulling my hips against hers.

"How much more do you have to do?" I murmur, dragging my lips across the softness of her skin,

to the other side of her neck.

"A lot," she answers, with a deep sigh. We hold a serious make-out session there against the

counter, until Bella pushes against my chest with one hand. "And I think I'll take a break now,"

she says, with a shaky laugh.

"Breaks are important," I say.

She takes my hand. "Come on, creepy stalker guy, let's get you out of these wet clothes. We

don't want you to catch a cold."

"Oh, sure," I say, letting her drag me out of the kitchen by my hand. "Concern for my health. A

convenient excuse to get me naked."

"Says the man who just kissed me senseless against my kitchen counter."

Upstairs, Bella starts the shower and then helps me out off my rain-soaked clothes, a kindness

that I wouldn't dream of interfering with. She points to the shower imperiously, and I snap off a

salute...so to speak. She leaves with my clothes and a minute later I hear the door to the dryer

slam and the drum begin turning, the zipper on my cargo shorts making a loud _clang _with each

tumble.

I step into the shower, enjoying the feel of the hot spray on my face, and then realize that Bella

never said if she would be back to join me. Showering with her is infinitely better than being

alone, and my head is soon lost in memories of the things I've been able to coax her into doing

while we were in my shower.

My fear vanishes when the door slides open and she steps carefully into the tub, only to elbow

me away from the water stream with a huge grin.

"You're a water hog," I tell her.

"Hey. My shower, remember?" she says, reaching for the shampoo bottle and pouring some into

her open palm. "Come here. Bend down."

She washes my hair, her fingers massaging my scalp, while I play with her breasts and grope at

her bottom until she finally _does _smack my chest with her hand. Laughing, she pushes my head

under the spray again until the suds are gone.

Then it's my turn to wash her hair, my eyes feasting on the trails of lather as they stream across

her skin and down her glistening body, bright white against pale ivory.

The soap and the steam and the exotic smell of the shampoo - it's a three-pronged assault on

my senses, and I try to talk Bella into prolonging our shower.

She shakes her head, apologetic. "We can't use all of the hot water," she says, kissing me softly,

"I still have a lot of baking to do, and I need it to wash dishes."

But it's all good, really, because on the other side of the shower door are soft towels and soft skin

and the cool, soft sheets of Bella's bed.

And now I come to the most important part of my plan. I tell her to lie still and I spend long

minutes doing nothing more than kissing all of my favorite parts of her: her instep, her ankles, the

inside of her knee, her soft lower belly. I save her neck - always my dessert – for last.

When she can no longer hold still from the need, and I'm so hard that it hurts, I slide into her, a

smooth, solid motion. We make love slowly, our eyes fixed on each other.

"I love you, B," I tell her. "Don't ever think that I don't want you every minute we're together."

"I love you, too," she whispers, her arms reaching for my neck as I slide my free arm around her

back, needing to hold her close. Her hips meet mine, pressing harder, urging me faster.

I brace myself with one arm and pull away for a moment, slowing, so that I can look down at all of

her: brown eyes open wide, searching mine...her long hair still wet and tousled, spread across the

pillow. I'd photograph her with my mind right now, if I could, preserving this image as a memory

that I would call up, with perfect clarity, when we're far apart.

With a firm tug on my shoulders, Bella pulls me closer again and kisses me deeply, our tongues

warm and familiar...pushing, swirling, pulling. Our bodies are pressed tightly together, and she

wraps her legs around my waist, taking me deeper inside.

"And Bella?" I say, into her ear.

"Hmm?" she murmurs, raining kisses along my shoulders.

"I'll want you every day that we're apart, too."

Her arms circle my neck again, and she presses her face close to mine. I feel a drop of wetness

against my skin. Maybe it's from her hair, or maybe it's a tear.

We whisper-chant encouragement to each other: _Yes, baby...I love you...so good...god, yes..._

_Yes._

I push us faster again, and she takes everything I give her and then returns it to me.

**Chapter Six**

Tomorrow is the day that Bella and Charlie leave for Chicago. It's a day that has dogged me all

summer, like those shadowy phantoms that haunt your steps in horror stories. You never actually

see them - you only catch a glimpse when you turn quickly.

Of course, tomorrow won't be the last time I have with Bella before the fall semester starts. I'll

stop at Northwestern on my way to Philly and spend a night there. But tonight _will _be the last time

we have here, alone in my apartment. Eating dinner on my coffee table. Making love in my bed.

Just existing in the quiet cocoon we've built, that home that we call _us_.

But tonight is just postponing the inevitable, of course. I want to forget that we'll be separated, not

only by 757 miles, but also by commitments. I want to forget that I'll likely go months without

feeling the contours of her softness under my hands, or being submerged by kisses that hold me

under in the best kind of death.

And I'm a selfish bastard to resent this separation, because while my commitments feel like a

prison sentence, hers strain at the seams with wonder and possibility. I can name the all of the

reasons I'm feeling sorry for myself lately, but it would make for boring conversation. And Jasper

would be the first person to tell me I was sounding like a pussy.

Fortunately, someone is unknowingly hauling me out of my little cesspool of self-pity: Bella's

mother. At the beginning of the summer, Renee bestowed a confidence on me: she wants much

more for Bella than she had. She wants her baby to go out into the world and experience all of

life, the good and the bad. She wants her daughter to pursue every ambition, to chase every

dream.

Renee has regrets, things that she wishes she had done differently, or not done at all. She wants

no such regrets for her daughter. I wonder if parents of "onlies" are particularly susceptible to

those sorts of wishes, noble as they are. I certainly recognize it in my own parents, although their

aspirations for my future have never been much in sync with my own.

In any case, because I also love Bella, I promised her mother - and by extension, Charlie - that I

wouldn't stand in the way of anything Bella wanted to do with her life, if she was ever forced to

choose.

Because the truth is, I want the same things for her. I want her to know the triumph that comes

from facing the first year of college and all it entails: the crushing load of coursework; the

minefield of friendships, competitiveness, and peer pressure. It's one of the biggest leaps you can

take in life, moving away from the familiar foundations of family and friends to a place where no

such foundations exist. Where you have to build them from the ground up, if you're ever going to

succeed.

I want that "Rocky" moment for her, running all the way up to the top of the steps, both fists

pumping in the air, exhilarated by the knowledge that you faced all of the crap head on and made

freshman year your bitch.

And of course, the best realization of all: knowing that you could do it again.

_So, how and when do I talk to Bella about my promise?_

I think she should have a chance to think about what it all means before I see her again, so

tonight it will be.

I hear the doorbell ring - Bella's way of alerting me that she's here. She's had her own key all

summer, but she still rings the bell, ever since she walked in quietly one afternoon when I was

writing. I was lost in my head and she scared the shit out of me.

She kicks the door closed behind her and maneuvers past stacks of moving boxes, meeting me

in the kitchen, where I'm packing up the few dishes I own.

She's gorgeous, standing here in my kitchen like a girl straight out of the '70s: her long hair down,

dressed in faded jeans and one of her favorite tee-shirts, the one with the Wonder Woman logo.

Her friends might say that the strand of pearls is all wrong with her outfit, but to me, she's perfect.

And she's carrying an overnight bag.

After I retrieve my jaw from the floor, I take the bag from her hand. "Is this...does this mean...?"

She nods. "Yep. When I kissed my dad goodbye, I told him I'd see him tomorrow morning. He just

stared at me and then down at the bag and then back at me, and he made his eyebrows meet in

the center. But he never actually said anything beyond, 'Bye Bells. Have...fun.'"

I give her a lascivious grin, and she returns it. "He wants to leave at 8:00," she continues. "Which

sucks, I know, but...yeah." She bites the corner of her mouth and glances at her sandaled feet

before meeting my eyes. "So...is it okay? I mean, I shouldn't presume, I guess."

I set down the bag, grimacing when something inside clunks on the hard floor. Picking her up in a

bear hug and spinning around, I set her down again and grab her face between my hands. I kiss

her soundly on the mouth, which is soft and warm and tastes of spearmint.

"It is so very fucking okay," I tell her, grinning like a fool.

Which I am, of course: a fool for her. My touchstone. My fantasy.

One pizza and two beers later, I'm stretched out on the floor, my back resting against the sofa

while Bella rummages through an open box of DVDs. She's drinking wine this evening, having

convinced me to open a bottle by promising me a head massage later.

_Maybe you could massage my scalp, too? _I had joked.

I watch her shuffling through DVD cases. "Babe?"

"Hmm?" She holds one up to me. "Oh! 'Four Weddings and a Funeral!' I love this one. I bet you

know that Auden poem by heart, don't you? It always makes me cry the big ugly tears." She pries

open the case with her fingers.

"Bella, I need to talk to you about something before we start a movie."

She freezes for a brief second, and then sits back on her heels, facing me. "Okay."

I pour a little more wine into her glass and extend my hand. She hesitates before taking it, her

fingers curling against mine, and I tug her gently over to sit across from me on the floor.

"You know that I sat next to your mother at graduation, right?" She nods. "Well, we talked about

you." At those words Bella rolls her eyes and reaches for her wine glass. "And she confided

something to me. She told me that she has some serious regrets, things that she wishes she had

done and experienced before getting married and having a baby, because not doing them had

repercussions. Not just for herself, but for those she loved."

Bella nods. "Over the last couple of years, I think I finally get that. So much of her flightiness and

eccentricities when I was a kid...that was just my mom, trying to finish growing up."

"Well, she wants something very different for you, B. She doesn't want _you _live with any regrets."

I search my memory for Renee's words while Bella takes a sip from her wine. "She said

something like 'I want her to go out into the world and grab at every opportunity, every chance to

learn about life. Both the good and the bad parts.'"

She remains silent and tears begin filling her eyes "That sounds like Mom," Bella says softly. I

take her hand, working my fingers through hers while I study her face.

"So why are you telling me this, Peter?" she asks, looking up from her wine.

"Because I told your mother that I wanted the same things for you." I rub firm arcs across the

back of her hand with my thumb. "I promised her, and really, I promised Charlie too, because I

knew he could hear our whole conversation."

"You promised them what, exactly?"

"That I wanted you to have every chance to see and learn about the world. That I'd do what I

could to make them happen, and that I would never stand in your way if those opportunities came

along."

Bella pulls hand from mine and sets her glass on the coffee table. Wrapping her arms around

herself, she shrugs. "Well, of course you wouldn't." Without meeting my eyes she asks, "What

sort of opportunities are you talking about?"

"Everything, the whole gamut of college life. Parties on your floor – in fact, let yourself get

dragged to frat parties. Maybe join a sorority. Meet people, get to know the ones who seem the

most interesting, the ones who'll push you, challenge you. Travel... maybe do an internship

somewhere. Just... go for it all, B."

She's doing that thing again with her mouth, where she bites on the corner and stares at some

inanimate object. If I hold my breath and don't move, maybe I can hear her thoughts, or at least

the mechanisms inside her head that churn them out.

I tap her chin with my finger. "Hey, beautiful girl. Where are you?"

Her gaze returns to mine, and I try to read her expression quickly, before hides it. I know her:

she's probably loath to inject any amount of angst into this evening, if she can possibly help it.

And then she graces me with a tentative smile. "Just thinking. You know, it almost sounds like

you're giving me some sort of permission to do whatever I want when I get to Northwestern."

"Wrong word choice." I shake my head and gesture at her with my beer. "_You _don't need my

permission for anything. That's sort of the point."

"I meant it in the relationship sense, not the literal sense."

"Meaning what?"

She gives my chest a playful, though firm, shove. "Never mind," she says, an undercurrent of

irritation in her tone.

_Oh._

_Bennett, you can be such a clueless asshole sometimes._

I set my beer down on the coffee table and take her by the wrists. She pulls back a little, her

expression wary, but I don't let go of her, until she relaxes and allows me to pull her onto my lap t

straddling me.

"Hey, there's a big difference between not standing in your way of experiencing life, and telling

you to date other guys, Bella. Make no mistake, you're still _my _treasure. I found you, and I don't

care how creepy it might sounds, I'm not about to share. Period."

She smiles then, ducking her head a little to avoid my eyes. "I should be all about feminist ideals,

I guess, but I must admit, that 'all mine' stuff is kind of hot."

_Maybe I can salvage this conversation, after all_. I tap her temple with my finger. "This brilliant

head belongs to _my _amazing girl." Her face flushes at these words, but I think she needs this. I

push against her jaw with my nose, nudging her head back up. "And so does the neck beneath it."

Sliding my hands down to her bottom, I give it a squeeze. "And this...this..._stupendous _ass?"

"It's all yours," she answers, wriggling forward on my lap until our hips meet.

Bending my head back to her neck, I kiss the indescribably soft skin beneath her ear, inhaling the

scent of lavender while I pull gently on her neck with my mouth. Moaning softly, she moves her

hips forward, both of her hands in my hair as she pulls my mouth to hers. She sucks gently on my

lower lip, and then nips at my chin.

"Movie?" I ask, though I know the answer.

"Maybe later," she says against my mouth, before climbing off my lap to stand. This time she

holds her hand out to me, and I fake being unable to stand. She tugs on it with both of hers, and I

pretend to let go as she pulls. Just before she starts to fall backwards, I grab her with my free

hand.

"Gotcha," I tell her, and she laughs, the best sound in the world.

**~O~**

I'm pinned against Peter as he clings to me in his sleep, both arms wrapped around me like I'm a

giant stuffed animal. His deep, even breaths are almost hypnotic, and I wish they had the power

to stop me from turning over the same thoughts repeatedly.

He scared the crap out of me tonight. I thought his "I need to talk to you" was the ramp-up to

some argument he was preparing to make about why it was better for me if we broke up now. My

relief at being wrong was so profound it probably deserves its own entry in the dictionary.

Part of me was angry at my mother for tasking Peter with this almost bizarre mission to ensure

that I "experienced" the Big World Out There. And part of me loved her even more to know that

she exposed herself that way, sharing with him her regrets and her fears in an effort to make sure

that I didn't repeat her mistakes.

What I didn't tell Peter – and there was much I did not say to him – is how familiar parts of our

conversation felt. His description of school and all of the experiences he wanted me to have...

they seemed to echo what Edward told me at Alice's graduation party: "College changes you,

Bella. It will make you think differently about many things."

Edward's words had left me unsettled then, as if they were a warning to me about the sea change

to come. I never told Peter about Edward's take on college, or about the effect it had had on me. I

was a different girl now, happy, whole. As I'd told my dad, I had a new sense of myself that was

no longer an extension of a boyfriend or a relationship. I didn't want Peter to see any traces of the

old me, the insecure Bella who was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And then Peter launched into his list of the college experiences he hoped I'd have. They were

almost overwhelming: going to parties, making new friends, getting involved. I hadn't thought of

school that way at all since my first few months in Forks. I had built journalism school up in my

head as classes, writing assignments, and guest lectures from professionals I had long idolized. I

assumed I could just put my social life on the back burner, saving it for those few weekends I

could be with Peter.

But it would appear that my assumptions about school were not entirely the "college experience"

that Renee and Peter wanted for me. Nor were they what Edward had made sound almost

inevitable.

I glance at the clock over on the nightstand. I've been awake for over an hour since Peter

dropped off to sleep.

Slowly, I untangle myself from his arms and he rolls to his other side. I lay my hand on his back

for a moment, making sure he's still asleep.

Getting up from the bed, I find my nightshirt in my overnight bag and put it on. I tip toe into the

bathroom, and when I finish, head to the kitchen for a glass of water.

From the kitchen counter, the light on my phone blinks at me in the darkness, and I pick it up.

There's a new email, and when I open my inbox and see the sender, I almost drop the phone. My

stomach lurches when I read "Edward."

_Bella,_

_I've gone back and forth about whether this email is a good idea, especially given my track_

_record. And then I figured, well, no guts, no glory._

_I know you're leaving for school tomorrow (Alice told me), and I just wanted to tell you again that_

_I'm sorry for everything. I have no right to expect your friendship, but I offer you mine_. _When you_

_get to school, if you ever need someone to talk to, I'm here. I know you're going to be fine, but if it_

_ever gets overwhelming - the classes, the people, the pressure - I'm just an email away._

_Take care, and have a safe trip to Chicago._

_Edward_

I let out a breath and stare at the screen. _Oh, Edward. You wait until _now _to say the right thing_, _to_

_be the nice guy_?

Oddly, I'm not angry at him for his timing, and maybe that's proof that I've moved on. Frankly, I

don't know what to make of this offer. He's not asking for another chance. He's not making polite

small-talk. Maybe it's just what it appears to be: an olive branch.

I read the email over a few times before tucking the phone into my purse. I don't even know if I

should respond, much less what that response should be.

I walk quietly back to bed and carefully slide under the sheet, molding myself to Peter's back. I lay

my arm across his torso and feel the muscles of his stomach under my palm, trying to match my

breathing to the evenness of his. I lay like that for a long time, until I finally drift off.

I wake as the sun is coming up and turn to the nightstand to check the alarm clock. I have only an

hour and a half before Charlie wants to get on the road.

Curling myself into a ball, I pull the sheet to my chin and wish that Peter and I could both be bears

and hibernate together for the winter. He stirs and rolls over to spoon against my back. His arms

scoop me into his chest, and his top leg traps my feet. I feel his nose against the back of my head

and hips move forward and ... _Oh_.

_I guess that must be the fabled "morning wood."_

It's pressed against my bare backside, my nightshirt having ridden up around my waist. I stretch

my legs out, tentatively, dislodging his leg to see if he's awake - although part of him clearly is.

Again, he presses against me, and I have my answer when he laughs quietly into my hair.

"Is that a baseball bat, or are you just glad to..." I whisper, but he cuts me off as he pulls up the

hem of my nightshirt and lifts it over my head. And now we're skin to skin and I love the feeling of

him hard against me. His hands find my breasts and the ache starts between my legs. I push

back against him, and already I'm so...ready.

He's torturing me, alternately kneading my breast and teasing its nipple. I reach behind me,

wanting the silkiness of his hair between my fingers.

Peter lifts my top leg and pulls it back, over his own. "Okay?" he asks into my ear, and I suppose

the low moan that comes from my chest is the answer he's looking for. His steadies my hip with

his hand while he slips inside in one effortless movement.

"God, Bella..." he groans, his voice low in my ear, and the vibration from his lips against my skin

sends a thrill all the way down to my belly.

"So good," I answer, and it is..._so _good. Him inside me, the sensation of being completely filled, of

being both enveloped by him at same time he is enveloped by me.

"I love you," he says, my earlobe between his teeth while he rocks against me.

"So much," I echo, as Peter drops his mouth to my neck. I tug on a handful of his hair, needing

him closer. As good as it feels this way – and it feels _incredible _- he's too far away from my eyes.

And much too far from my mouth.

Overpowered by sensation, I'm an addict needing more, and I demand that he give me what he

has. "Harder." _No, harder than that. _"Yes – _God_, Peter. Faster..."

And I don't even say please.

As ever, Peter denies me nothing, driving into me with still more force, and I feel desperation in

every thrust, though I don't know where his ends and mine begins.

When I come in his arms, I'm loud, sharp cries punctuated by short sobs. He shushes and kisses

me back to calm before picking up the movement again, though slower now, sweeter. And then

he closes his eyes and tenses his muscles and utters a string of words_. Bella...fuck...love_

_you...God._

But afterward, neither of us speaks. Not a word. We stay in the bed, wrapped in each other, until

the last possible minute before I need to go home.

**~O~**

After Bella leaves, I spend the rest of the morning packing boxes and cleaning my apartment. It

smells like Windex now, instead of her.

After Bella leaves, I roll up the area rugs and haul them out to the rental truck, along with the rest

of my furniture. Mike Flanagan comes by and helps with the heavy stuff.

After Bella leaves, I pace around the empty rooms, my footfalls echoing on the hardwood floor.

Tonight, I'll drive the truck to my parents' house in Seattle and spend the night there before

setting out for Chicago in the morning. I can handle one evening of verbal fencing with my father,

where most points are scored on the offensive moves.

In the afternoon, I sit on the floor, open my big duffle-bag and retrieve my laptop. If I'm lucky,

maybe I can lose myself in the writing, get a little more done, because soon enough, I won't have

empty hours like these.

Buried under some clothes in the duffle, I discover a gift-wrapped package. Inside it is a bottle of

Baker's, one of my favorite bourbons, and a whiskey glass with something engraved on it: _If you_

_can't annoy someone, there is little point in writing – Kingsley Amis._

Rolled up inside the glass is a handwritten note:

_Before you freak out, no, I didn't buy this illegally. I had Emmett pick it up for me before he left._

_This is the same brand of bourbon you offered me the night we met at that party. It warmed me_

_inside and gave me the courage to talk to you. And when it wore off, you took its place. Enjoy this_

_(and the glass) until I have a chance to return the favor._

_I love you, and I miss you already._

_B_

Blowing the dust from inside the glass, I pour a shot of the amber liquid and hold it up to the

afternoon sun. The light plays off the glass, creating refractions that play across the empty floor.

"I miss you too, baby."

**~O~**

"'Welcome to Idaho," Charlie announces, reading from the big blue sign by the side of the

interstate. "'The Gem State.' And here I thought it was the Potato State. Or something."

He looks over at me from behind the wheel of Peter's Subaru. His smile is tentative, and I think

his joking might be mostly for his own his benefit. "We're out of Washington, Bells."

I lean forward in the passenger seat and gaze into the rear-view mirror, watching as Washington

disappears into the distance. I've done this several times today, once when we left Forks this

morning, and again as we drove out of Seattle.

I'm glad that we're driving to Chicago. I'm glad I didn't get on a plane that would whisk me there in

four hours, instead of the four days it will take us in the car. Almost three years ago, when I

moved to Forks from Phoenix, Renee had put me on airplane, and Charlie was there to meet me

when I got off. It took weeks for me to shake the feeling that I was just visiting him. I would wake

in the mornings and one of my first conscious thoughts would be "I wonder if I should start

packing."

When it takes a long time to get somewhere, I think we get more from the journey. A long journey

doesn't just offer more time to think about all that lies ahead of us. It also leaves us with a

stronger sense of the place we've left behind.

**Chapter Seven**

I spread the syllabi for each of my classes across my desk and begin entering all of the dates into

three places: the calendar on my laptop, the little pocket planner I carry everywhere, and finally,

on the giant calendar I use as a desk blotter. This takes forever, but there is a method to my

madness: when I record the due dates for the whole semester, it's easy for me to see all of the

bottlenecks in my schedule. And when I can see them, I can plan for them.

_Control freak, Bella? Why, yes. Yes I am._

At four weeks into my classes, it's already clear where the disappointments are, and where the

unexpected treasures can be found.

Freshman English, to my surprise, is the worst form of torture, and if I don't place out of it before

the end of the semester, I might hurt someone. Its sole purpose seems to be to ensure that

freshmen can both organize and confine their ideas into a coherent, five-paragraph essay. I

snorted out loud when I saw the course overview; I've been writing these essays since freshman

year of _high school_. I'm offended that I need to prove myself to a graduate student with a superior

attitude – one who is, from the look on her face, as tortured by the process as I am.

I think I could teach the damn class myself, frankly.

The Medill School at Northwestern requires their journalism students to develop a six-course

concentration in a subject area within the arts and sciences, as well as a three-course series in

one of the social sciences. Presumably, these courses will give us "background and expertise

that will lend depth to our future writing."

I have no idea what courses I should choose, but it would help if I had some idea about what kind

of journalism I'd like to pursue. I could cover international politics, maybe be the next Christiane

Amanpour. Or I could cover social issues – investigative journalism has always interested me.

And there's always criminal reporting; being the daughter of a cop might give me a leg up.

And all this time I'd been thinking that journalism school was my biggest life decision.

The saving grace is that I have two courses in my major this year: "Reporting and Writing" and

"Introduction to 21st Century Media." They are the highlights of my week, with both classes taught

by engaging professors with a multitude of real-life experiences to share. Being part of those

classes, where everyone else is interested in the same things I am, is like a shot of endorphins

straight into my veins. It sends me on a goofy high that makes so many other parts of college

easier to bear.

After I finish entering all of the due-dates into my calendars, I see a log jam coming in three

weeks: two exams, two papers, and my first big news report.

My jaw drops in shock, and my pen follows, clattering to the desk. All are due in the same week.

And I am just _now _realizing this?

My stomach knots up, and I hear my mother's voice somewhere in the back of my memory,

recommending herbal tea: _"It'll relax you, sweetie. Oh, and don't forget about aromatherapy._

_Lavender is very soothing."_

These days, I miss my mother more than I have in years.

I guess when the going gets tough, the tough get up and make tea. Plugging in the electric kettle

that Mom sent me as a "room-warming" gift, I silently thank her as I drop a bag of Sleepytime into

my mug.

Tea in hand, I return to my desk and open my email. I want to dash off a panicked note to Alice,

with whom I've been carrying on a lively "FML (Fuck My Life)" email-thread since I got to

Northwestern. We both contribute to it at least once a day.

Searching my inbox to find our thread, I pause on Edward's name. It's the email he sent just

before I left Forks, the email to which I never replied.

Opening it, I reread his words, which are drenched in politeness and echo from a safe distance. I

tell myself that they are indeed an olive branch and not the foundation for a future plea.

My mouse pointer hovers over Reply while my index finger does a little tap dance on the left

mouse button. _I could try politeness. I'm good at polite. _I press once, perhaps harder than

necessary, and the _click _of the button is as loud as a cricket trapped in a quiet house.

_Hey,_

_Thanks for your email. I'm sorry I didn't answer sooner, but I guess I just...wasn't sure what to_

_say._

_So, school is busy, ridiculously so - but also completely exciting. I have two journalism classes_

_this semester, and those are the best parts of my week._

_And I have this great roommate who is everything I'm not, but we seem to work anyway. Funny_

_how that happens._

_Hope your semester is going well so far._

_Bella_

After reading the email a few times, I click on Send.

And immediately I'm seized with regret.

_I was too friendly. _The bastard broke my heart and clawed out my innards, and my reply to him

was positively chipper.

_What if he misinterprets it? _So what if he does? I'll just ignore any more emails I get from him.

_Peter._

A mild wave of nausea crests in my stomach, and I worry about what Peter would think of me

exchanging polite emails with Edward. About many things in this world, Peter is as calm and

centered as a Buddhist monk.

Edward is not one of those things.

I remember his assertion after graduation that Edward still loved me, and I shake my head at the

notion, though no one is there to see it. Despite the idiotic manner in which he broke up with me,

Edward's always been gracious and polite, thanks to his upbringing. Knowing Peter as I do, he'd

put a negative spin on Edward's email, and that would only add to Peter's distrust of him. And

Peter is already juggling enough this semester without adding Edward to the mix.

I turn back to my schedule and raise the mug to my lips, the hot steam scented with spiced

orange. I almost spit the tea out on my keyboard but swallow instead, the much too-hot tea

scalding the roof of my mouth. It leaves an inferno of pain all the way down my esophagus, and I

swallow again, just to make sure I still can.

"Fuck!" I sputter, pressing my hand hard against my chest. "That was hot!"

"Listen to that potty mouth. I guess you _are _capable of cursing, Swan," Kate says, walking in the

door with a bag of pretzels and a can of Diet Coke. Her earlier foraging expedition must have

been successful. Kicking off her penguin slippers, she climbs up to her loft bed and resettles

herself with her Intro to Psych textbook.

"_Shit_. That was hot," I tell her, repeating myself because I apparently killed a few brain cells with

that scalding sip.

Katrina Sokolov is my roommate, but she strongly prefers "just plain Kate." There is not one plain

thing about her, though. Physically, she is my worst nightmare: a willowy five foot eight, with

blond hair down to the middle of her back and porcelain-smooth skin. Her eyes, a striking bluegreen,

never move from yours when she speaks, which she does quite often.

Kate is boisterous and loud, and when it's quiet, I can almost hear her body buzzing with an

energy level that goes to eleven. Kate has opinions, which she does not hesitate to voice, and

she is possibly the most self-confident girl I've ever met.

She wears shiny pink lip-gloss and frayed skinny jeans, and after a month of living in each other's

pockets, I like her very much.

During the first week of school, Kate met a guy at a party and was immediately smitten. She was

walking and talking and gesturing wildly to someone when she barreled into Garrett, sending him

sprawling into a puddle of spilled beer. Garrett, tall and almost as fair as Kate, is a junior and a

history major. When they're not all over each other, their chief sport is ensuring that I have

something resembling a social life here. I finally accused them of entering into an unholy pact with

my mother and Peter.

"Did you talk to him today?" Kate asks, and I wonder if I just spoke Peter's name out loud without

realizing it. Kate met Peter once, when he stopped here on his way to Penn. She likes to make

loud sucking noises whenever Peter and I are on the phone or Skype, just before she leaves the

room to give us privacy.

"Nope." _Here come the questions. Bring it, Kate._

But instead, she's uncharacteristically silent. _Ah, I see your ploy. You think I'll fill your silence with_

_details._

"What?" I ask. "Are you working on your interrogation skills?"

"_Interviewing _skills," she corrects. "For when I'm a celebrity journalist and I want the truth from

Justin Bieber."

"You can't handle the truth."

She snorts. "I can handle anything."

I arch an eyebrow. "So Garrett tells me."

She aims for my head, but I dodge the flying pillow. "Excuse me! Hot liquid here!"

"Sorry!" She laughs and returns to her book. While I successfully stopped her line of questioning,

I cannot block the thoughts that creep into my head like the low-lying fog back in Forks.

For the first week or two of school, Peter and I texted each other so much that I had to recharge

my phone long before the day was over. In the evenings, Kate would disappear somewhere while

we got on Skype. We talked about our classes and our roommates, he'd tell me he missed me,

and we'd whisper dirty jokes to each other. And then he'd slowly touch his screen with his finger

and say goodnight.

But in the last few weeks, the work began piling up and the reading lists got longer, and we didn't

text more than a few times a day. Because we didn't text often, we'd forget to schedule our Skype

chats. I suggested that we save them for the weekends, although Peter insisted that he was there

anytime I needed to talk to him.

But that's hard to do if he doesn't sign into Skype, isn't it? And when I pointed this fact out to him,

my voice heavy on the sarcasm, he explained that he often forgets to sign in if he's writing. He

doesn't get enough time to write now, with classes and a part-time job on campus, and I don't

want to interrupt.

I suppose it's to be expected that the frequency of our contact would drop off after we were both

settled at school. To my relief, though, when we are able to connect, it's like nothing has changed

but our geography. We still "get" each other with just a few words. And Peter's is still the last

voice I want to hear before I fall asleep.

Our Skye chats are both the best and the worst part of my week. Best because he wears his

glasses and doesn't shave every day, and even on the screen, he can still melt my heart into a

puddle when he ducks his head a little and looks up at me with _those _eyes. Worst because I

cannot touch the dimple in his chin or rake my fingers through his hair and massage his head.

**~ O ~**

In my Reporting and Writing class, the professor starts every Friday session with an exercise: he

hands out a sheet of paper with the barest of facts about a breaking story, and then challenges us

to write a lead of between 25 and 35 words as fast as we can. We read them aloud and critique

them, and the class votes on the best ones.

Sometimes they're hard news stories, and sometimes Professor Murray gives us feature-type

stories. I've realized rather quickly that I enjoy writing leads for the features much more than the

hard news.

Today, he gives us the following information:

Dateline: Syracuse, NY

Record-setting snowstorm dumps 42 inches of snow. Woman with twin babies runs out of

diapers, husband stranded in Oswego. Neighborhood kids collect money and deliver three

packages of diapers on a sled.

This couldn't be any easier: this particular exercise is highly visual, and it has all of the classic

elements of a tug-at-the-heartstrings story. I open my laptop, set my fingers on the keys, and

close my eyes.

And the story is _right there_, behind my eyelids, imprinting itself on my brain as the sentences form

and run down my arms. The words wiggle their way into my hands, and my fingers twitch and

jump across the keys.

When our time is up, we go around the room, each of us reading our leads out loud. Some of

them are so fabulous that I actually whimper a little because there is no more story behind them.

Some of them are too ambitious, as the writers try to include as many of the hard facts as they

can in the fewest number of words. And a couple of leads sound so self-consciously "edgy" that

one might think Chuck Palahniuk just took up journalism.

It's my turn, and I clear my throat before I begin.

_When Caroline Kuchowski heard the doorbell ring, she didn't answer it right away. She couldn't,_

_really; the crying babies on either hip wouldn't allow it. When she finally managed to open the_

_door, a four-feet high snowdrift on the other side miraculously presented her with a jumbo pack of_

_Huggies diapers, size three._

"Nice," the guy in the desk behind me says under his breath.

Professor Murray nods. And for the first time, he suggests no changes.

At the end of class, he stops me and scribbles on a Post-it. "This woman is the director of a local

food bank. She needs someone to put together a small newsletter for their donors, write press

releases, that kind of thing." He peels the note off and hands it to me.

"Thank you," I stammer, staring hard at the name and number on the little square of yellow paper.

My hand trembles just slightly, and it's not because I had only coffee for breakfast.

"It doesn't pay anything," he adds.

"Oh, of course not," I rush to answer. "I mean, it's a non-profit, right? It doesn't matter."

Professor Murray nods and smiles. "Call soon, okay? She needs someone good."

He slides his laptop into the case and slings it over a shoulder as he walks out of the room. I

stand there a few moments longer, clutching a yellow piece of paper, my cheeks beginning to

ache from smiling.

**~ O ~**

In the middle of texting Alice the news about my writing job, my phone beeps. It's an email from

Edward.

_Hey,_

_It was great to hear from you. Sounds like you're in your element there. It's always a rush to be_

_surrounded by "your own kind," huh?_

_Don't forget to take all of those deadlines and exams and papers one at a time. Don't let worry_

_paralyze you._

_And about your roommate: I'm willing to bet that you're everything that SHE is not. And then_

_some._

_TTYL,_

_E_

His email is short and to the point, and after my third read, I stop analyzing every sentence in it.

Because the truth is, I cannot find fault with any of them.

**~ O ~**

That evening, while Kate is out with Garrett, I talk to Peter on Skype. When his video starts, I

have to bite back a comment. He looks terrible: dark circles under his eyes, hair in need of a trim,

and several day's worth of scruff on his face. I'm usually a complete fool for a few days of stubble,

but not when it comes as part of the "I'm a wreck" look.

"Hey," I begin.

"Hey, B," he answers. He always flashes me his mischievous, half-smile/half-smirk, the one that

usually makes my toes wiggle of their own accord - but not tonight.

Tonight, his mouth barely turns up at one corner.

"You look tired," I tell him, still downplaying my reaction. I really want to say "you look like hell."

"Yeah," he answers, his eyes closing for a moment as he runs his hand over his face. "There just

aren't enough hours for it all. You know?" He reaches for something, and raises a glass to his

mouth, taking a gulp of something brown before setting it back down, out of camera range.

"Hey, is that the glass and the bourbon I gave you?"

"'Yes' to the glass, and 'hell, no' to the bourbon. The good stuff was gone by the time I got to

Chicago." He picks up the glass and considers it for a moment. "This is just...Beam. I think." He

takes another swallow. "Tastes like shit compared to the Baker's you gave me."

"Been drinking it for a while tonight?" I ask, aiming for casual but missing the mark. I've always

been a terrible shot.

"Why? Are you my mother now?"

I let that slide, but it takes some effort. That kind of stinging sarcasm is not like Peter. Clearly he's

drunk, on top of his exhaustion. With all he has on his plate, he _should _get to blow off his stress,

but I looked forward to this call all week.

I pick up my pen and doodle on my desk blotter, geometric shapes that share sides as they build

on each other, despite a lack of overall design or direction.

"So," he asks, breaking the quiet, "what's up? Besides me, I mean." He cocks one eyebrow at me

and this time succeeds at a lascivious grin.

I answer that with just a smirk, because it's not the direction I wanted this conversation to go, at

least not yet.

"As a matter of fact, I have two things to report."

He props his chin on one hand. "Oh?"

"First, this morning in class, I wrote a kick-ass feature lead and Professor Murray didn't have a

single thing to say about it. That's the equivalent of high praise."

Peter's low laugh comes through my laptop's speaker as little puffs of breath and he mimes a

high five at me. "And the second thing?"

I try to be cool about this, try to sound nonchalant, but it's a lost cause. I sit up higher in my chair,

almost bouncing in place. "Murray stopped me after class and referred me for a writing job at a

local non-profit."

"A job?"

"Yes, for a local food bank. The director needs someone to write a monthly newsletter for their

donors, as well as write press releases, and maybe some other stuff."

Peter frowns. "You don't have time for a job."

My back stiffens. His statement reminds me of another time, of another person who used to tell

me what I should and shouldn't do.

"I can do most of it on the weekends," I tell him. "It can't be too much work, because they're not

paying me."

His jaw drops. "They're not _paying _you? Why would you do this if they're not paying you?"

"Uh, for the experience? To help them out?"

"Bella, don't you think your first semester of freshman year is enough work already?"

"Yes, but this –"

"And when exactly are you supposed to have fun?"

"But this is -"

"You have a lot to adjust to, you know. Juggling all of the writing assignments, studying for

exams, learning to deal with a roommate - "

"I don't have to 'learn' to deal with Kate. We're doing just fine."

"Whatever, my point is that a job should come later, after you've adjusted to school. When I said

that you should grab at everything, Bella, I didn't mean that you should grab more than you can

carry."

The booze is loosening both his tongue and the filter on his brain. He's never been a loose

canon, never been one to expound on his opinions unless someone asks.

This isn't how I expected my news to go over. I had thought _Peter _would be excited, too, that he'd

see immediately that it was an honor for me to be asked to do this, out of all of the students in my

class.

I thought he'd be proud of me.

On the screen, I see a pair of jeans walk up behind Peter and set a beer down in front him, before

lightly smacking him on the head. I can't see a face, but it's a guy's crotch, so I suppose it's his

roommate, Riley. I had assumed Peter was alone in the apartment, so Riley's presence feels like

he's been in on our conversation all along, which irritates me.

"What the fuck, man?" Peter hollers, turning away from the screen to speak with maybe-Riley.

"Nah, I can't. I need to write tonight."

I wait impatiently while the two have a muffled exchange. I just want to get back to our

conversation, even if my excitement over the job is now gone.

Finally, Peter turns back to face his screen, taking a pull on the beer.

"Sorry. Riley wanted to go shoot some pool tonight, but I'm not up for it."

I can't think of a reply that's civil, so I don't offer one. I had wanted to talk to him about that one

bottleneck of deadlines I have on my calendar, maybe get his advice for avoiding panic. But it's

become clear that this particular call isn't the right time for that.

Instead, I try again to get him to tell me how it's going on his end. I'm concerned about the

drinking, because on the few occasions I've seen him drink too much, he's always been happy –

even a little goofy.

He had been so wrapped up in his novel before we left Forks, really pushing to get as much done

as he could before the semester started. I can't imagine how he's handling all of his self-imposed

pressure to work on it at the same time he's taking a full course load.

"How are your classes?" I ask. "What's your favorite?"

He laughs again. "None of them," he answers, before taking another sip from the beer. "They're

all boring as shit. The reading is worse, though. I end up having to reread most of it because it's

so dry. At least Urban Fiscal Policy has the occasional semi-interesting debate."

I blow out a breath and take a sip from my can of Diet Coke, then decide to change tack. "How's

the writing going?"

He rubs the back of his neck and is quiet for several long moments. "It's...slow. It's harder here.

Interruptions all the time; Riley's got quite the social life. And the people here are...different."

"It's not Forks."

He shakes his head, and then just looks at me without speaking. His gaze is unfocused, as if he's

not really seeing me because his head is somewhere else.

"Peter?"

He twitches slightly, a small movement of his head, and then orients himself back to me. "Yeah?"

"Would you like to go write? I don't mind. Maybe we can talk another time."

He pushes paper around his desk, finds a pen and then twists around, pulling his backpack into

his lap. "I just got an idea about something."

"I know," I say quietly. "I could tell."

He stops while reaching into his backpack and looks back up at me. He sighs, and then pulls out

a spiral-bound notebook and drops the pack to the floor.

"I'm sorry, B. I'm an asshole, aren't I?"

_Well... _"No, of course not. You've just got a lot on your plate right now. And I..."

His shoulders sag while I say this, and his eyes are sad.

"Can we talk tomorrow?" he asks. "I have to work ten to three, but maybe after dinner?"

"Yeah, sure."

He manages a lingering smile for me, but I can see the effort behind it. It fades from his face in

slow motion, replaced by a fatigue that moves across his features, darkening them like clouds on

a hillside.

"'Night, baby," he says, reaching for his mouse.

"'Night," I answer, and his video goes dark.

I hang up the call and press my hand against my stomach. It's hollow.

Picking up a book, I climb into bed and burrow under the covers, pushing back tears.

Peter didn't touch his laptop screen with his finger when he said goodnight.

**~ O ~**

"Here, Bella," Garrett says, his hands full of plastic Solo cups. "I got you something red, like you

said."

"Hey, you rhymed," I say, relieving him of the cup of wine before he hands one of the beers to

Kate.

He grins. "I'm a poet and I don't know it."

"But your feet show it!"

He raises one knee, balancing precariously to show off a foot. "They're long-fellows!"

Kate falls apart – apparently no one in her family tells corny old jokes – and she almost spills her

beer on the beat-up old sofa we're occupying, which might actually improve its scent. She

giggles, snorting when she takes a breath, and that makes us laugh even harder.

I'm not sure who is more drunk, Kate or I.

I'd been snuggled in bed, trying to focus on a book about ethics in modern media, when she and

Garrett stopped by our room to grab a jacket for Kate. She took a long look at me, probably noted

the condition of my eyes, and informed me that I was coming out with them to a party. She

tolerated no pushback from me, dropping my sneakers next to my bed and striding off to the

closet to fetch my fleece.

And I was glad that she had bullied me into coming out, because despite my surroundings – a

dilapidated, drafty old frat house – I'm having one hell of a good time here. The music is loud and

fun, everyone is friendly and happy, and my drinking hand is almost never empty.

Garrett leans down to nuzzle Kate's neck, so I attempt to occupy myself with my phone. I check

my chat list, but Peter isn't signed in. _Of course. _I scroll down my list of contacts, and then dash

off a message to Alice: _omg, goona nerd hahangovr reremeduys sooooon_

And then I tilt my head, very confused, because right below Alice's name in my chat list is

Edward's. _Huh._

Somehow, Gmail, in its baffling wisdom, must have decided to add Edward here (again), since we

recently exchanged a few emails. He's logged into chat right now, which makes sense; it's still

early out in Seattle. I snicker when I see that his icon is a caduceus. _Oh, that Edward...always_

_focused on his goals._

"Kate?" I ask, staring at my phone, "Do you think people can change?"

She gives her head one hard shake, as if trying to orient her brain to my question. "Ex-squeeze

me?"

Even in my drunken state, I realize it's a bit of a non sequitur.

"Do you think a guy can be a total ass for a while, but then change for the better? I mean _really_

change."

"Change is hard," Garrett intones solemnly.

"Yes, thank you, Rafiki," I reply, and Garrett breaks into a way-off-key rendition of "Hakuna

Mattata."

Kate slaps a hand over his mouth while she ponders my question. "Yes, I do think guys can

change," she answers, sipping her beer and then belching delicately. "Especially if they've had to

suffer the consequences of their asinine actions. Asinine? That's the word, right?" She leans

closer to me. "I was going to say 'asshole,' but I didn't want Garrett to think I was vulgar."

"You are vulgar," I stage-whisper. "But in a good way."

While Kate goes back to snuggling with Garrett, I consider her answer to my question. Maybe _I'm_

a consequence Edward's had to face. Not _much _of one, perhaps, but the distance I've maintained

from him might at least have reinforced that it was lasting consequence.

I stare at my phone for a moment, and then tap on Edward's name and start typing: _gurss what?_

His response is immediate: _chicken butt._

I laugh out loud. I forgot that he always used to answer that way.

_A prof rec'd mee fir a wrting job! _It feels so good typing that, even if I do have to close one eye to

see my phone's keypad more clearly.

_I'm not surprised_, Edward says. _Cream always rises to the top_.

I stare stupidly at my phone. I'm bad with compliments. I'm _really _bad with compliments from exboyfriends

who were assholes. Or _changed _assholes, maybe.

I settle for the simple way out: _thx!_

_Have fun. Be safe, ok?_

_k, cya._

I lock the screen on my phone, wiping at the smudges while I think about what Edward just said:

_Well, I'm not surprised..._

It's the sort of positive and unfailingly kind thing that Peter would say_._

_But he didn't._

I put my phone back in my jacket pocket, and Garrett suddenly announces that he's hungry. He

offers to buy us all breakfast at a diner within walking distance.

In the morning, I know I'll regret all of the wine I drank tonight. I might regret the pancakes I'm

about to eat.

And I don't know for sure, but I have a feeling I'll regret drunk-chatting with Edward.

**~ O ~**

In the morning, I am right on all three counts. I have a splitting headache, and I badly need to

vomit and just get it over with. And I cannot believe I chatted with Edward.

I remember debating with my girlfriends over lunch one day last year: how do you define cheating

on someone? Is it only a physical thing? Is there such a thing as emotional infidelity? Surprisingly,

we were all basically in agreement: it all came down to secrecy. Even if it was a silly flirtation, if

you couldn't confess it to your partner, you were doing something wrong.

For most of Saturday morning, I lay in bed sipping water and struggling to keep my guilt from

wrestling in my stomach with last night's pancakes. Peter doesn't know that I've

been...communicating...with Edward. And I need to fix that.

But I'm afraid. And that fear worries me, because from the time I met him, I've been able to tell

Peter anything. It would be easy to fall back into my old pattern of thinking the worst but saying

nothing. Peter and I faced and cleared that hurdle together last Christmas, and ever since, there

hasn't been a fear or insecurity I couldn't confide to him.

Where has that intimacy gone? The air between us feels different, somehow. Maybe it's simply

the physical distance that separates us. Maybe it's the weight of responsibilities.

Or maybe this change is part of what Edward tried to explain that day last summer, the day he

apologized to me: _"The whole experience of college will make you think differently about so many_

_things you thought you knew."_

About how difficult long-distance relationships can be, for starters.

Before Peter and I talk again, I need to figure out the words to explain my worries about us.

Until then, I'll have to fall back on music.

I pick up my iPod from my nightstand and scroll through the artists, stopping at Adele. _That_

_woman conveys more with her voice than I could ever write in a novel, _Peter once said.

I drag myself up from my bed and sit down at my desk, opening up my laptop. I find the song I

want on YouTube.

_Whenever I'm alone with you, you make me feel like I am home again..._

Embedding the video into an email, I send it to Peter. It speaks through all of my frustration and

says what I _do _know to be true. And that's a good place for us to start, a good place for us to find

the path back to each other.

_However far away I will always love you..._

**Chapter Eight**

_A small creek marked the back edge of his grandparents' property, well south of the 101, in the_

_eastern end of Clallam County. The creek was strewn with rocks, and it meandered, curving back_

_on itself while it carved embankments into the mossy earth. Through most of the year, it was_

_perhaps only six or eight inches deep, but during the spring and fall, the snowmelt and rains_

_swelled the little creek to almost a foot and half in some places._

_David spent several weeks each summer at his grandparents', where he played in the creek for_

_hours, stacking stones into elaborate dams to hold back the water. In his head, he became the_

_world's greatest engineer, creating spillways to bring electricity to all of the people living without it._

_He made wide, pristine lakes that would be recreational havens for generations to come._

_One late afternoon, during the summer David was eight, his father arrived to take him home for_

_the weekend. He wanted his father to see his newest lake, the one he'd finished just an hour_

_earlier, after most of a day spent lifting rocks and dredging gravel from the creek bed. It was_

"_almost two foot deep!" in a few places, nearly covering many of the rocks._

_David's father wanted to get home to his wife and his dinner and his cold bottle of Coors, but his_

_son pulled relentlessly on his hand. David led him through the too-high grass of the back lawn,_

_their feet sending tiny crickets leaping out of harm's way._

_They approached the embankment, the boy hopping at the end of his father's arm. But when they_

_reached the edge, David stared in horror at his creation. Part of his rocky dam had given way,_

_and his lake had drained until it was almost level with the rest of the creek bed._

"_It was almost two feet," he said, his eyes filling with tears. He looked up at his father, saw the_

_disbelief on the man's face and felt his creeping boredom. "It _was_," he choked._

_The man did not look at his son, but continued to stare at the tiny falls, watching as the creek_

_tumbled over the rocks, creating little eddies in the water below._

"_That's what you get for trying to force it," the father said._

_He turned and walked back up the embankment. "Let's go," he said, not looking back to see if his_

_son followed._

I push my chair back from the desk and roll my head around, working out some of the knots from

my neck and shoulders. I'd been working on a short story for four hours, after being unable to

sleep and giving up trying sometime around 2:00 a.m. This new story had nothing to do with my

novel, but after I had seen and talked to Bella, the characters and the setting had all come to me

quickly. Hearing her voice and seeing the empathy in her eyes when she said "it isn't Forks" had

prodded at a long-dormant part of my imagination, and I needed to write.

Sleep had been an elusive thing this semester, but it had been that way for me before. The last

time was two years ago, during my sophomore year here at Penn. That year three things had

happened that made me question the direction I was taking. I started writing again, and I began to

wonder why I had ever thought that majoring in economics was a good idea. It was also the year

I met and lost Charlotte.

For most of that spring semester, I would wake every night around 3 a.m., that time Ray Bradbury

called "the soul's midnight." It was freaky the way I always woke at the same time, and it didn't

take long for the creep-factor to give way to frustration. It was as if my brain was stuck on one of

those local-access cable channels: no real picture, only an audio stream, an endless loop of

stream-of-consciousness thoughts. Seemingly random, I thought they would fry my brain with

their relentless, monotonous buzz: _What the fuck am I doing here? I hate economics. What was I_

_thinking? But I have be _somewhere_, have to do something with my life because God knows I'm_

_not a real writer anyway, I'm just a talentless hack with delusions of success. I should drop out._

_But I have to help Charlotte with Econ 202; she's barely pulling a C and if she flunks the midterm,_

_she'll end up with a D for the first time in her life, and her parents will shit the biggest bricks in the_

_whole history of Ivy League brick-shitting. I can't believe I just strung the words 'Ivy League brickshitting'_

_together like that. I should write that down._

Welcome to Bennett's All-Night Diner, where our grill is always on, and a plate of neuroses are

tonight's special.

And here I am, almost two years later, still running the same diner.

But this time...this time the girl is different. Bella doesn't need my help. She has her own roots to

put down at Northwestern, her own space to grow while she reaches for the sun. Bella is not part

of the mess I've walked right back into here, and I won't let it affect her - or us.

I don't want to hear myself have to say it: _Sorry, Renee, I broke my promise to you; I managed to_

_drag your daughter down into the screwed up morass that is my life._

With an almost physical stab at my conscience, I remember last night's Skype with Bella. I should

never have talked to her on the heels of an argument with my father. He'd called to make sure

that I had followed up with the guy from Blackman-Anderson about an internship next summer. I

couldn't lie and tell him yes because it would be too easy for him to check.

He was furious when I answered, lecturing me while barely taking a breath. It was easy to picture

his red face on the other end of the line, the spittle flying from his lips as he paced in front of his

desk, pausing now and then to knead at his forehead.

After a week of classes and writer's block and too little sleep, I shut down on my father, offering

only simple yes or no answers to his interrogations. And that only pissed him off further, until

finally, he hung up on me.

I expect he'll call back sometime this weekend. He's never given anything up easily.

After all, perseverance is one of his so-called "tools for conquering The Street."

Riley had paced around our apartment, waiting for me to finish, but there was no escaping the

drama-fest that constitutes a phone call with my father. When I put down my phone, Riley handed

me a bourbon and said that Friday happy hour had begun. We drank, and I threw darts at the

board he had installed in the living room when he moved in. Extrovert that he is, Riley kept

running his mouth, but I wasn't in the mood for chatter. I played in near silence, and the mindless,

repetitive motion of throwing the darts was soothing.

And then Bella called me on Skype, and she was upbeat and bouncy about her classes and a job

offer. It's not that I wasn't happy for her; I was. She wasn't just getting time to write, she was

immersed in a life of writing, where it was expected and encouraged and praised. And almost as

important, she was in the thick of it all with other writers; she wasn't holed up in a cramped, musty

apartment in Philly, slogging through Econ Statistics or reading mind-numbing papers on the

random walk hypothesis.

And none of that was her fault, not any of it.

**~ O ~**

Later that morning, I'm at my desk in the back offices of the Penn Bookstore, slamming coffee

down as I enter purchase orders into the system in preparation for the holidays. God forbid we

stock-out of those ubiquitous hooded, pullover sweatshirts, the ones in navy with the Penn logo.

My cell chimes with an email, and my pulse jackrabbits when I see that it's from Bella. There's no

text, just a YouTube video of Adele that auto-plays, the tinny speaker on my cell phone doing a

felony injustice to her rich, complex alto.

Bonnie Carver, at her desk on the other side of our cramped office, raises her eyebrows. I grab

the ear-buds from my backpack and plug them into the phone, and then me.

My eyes slide closed and my head falls into my hands while I listen to an acoustic cover of

"Lovesong," just Adele and a guitar. _Whatever words I say, I will always love you..._

A wave of remorse about last night washes up on me, so powerful that I feel like throwing up. And

the memory of the way I acted leaves a taste in my mouth as bad as if I actually did.

On top of everything else wrong in my life, I've hurt the woman whom I love beyond words.

Bonnie gets up from her chair, and taking both of our empty coffee mugs with her, slips quietly

out of the office. Maybe my posture gave me away, but I appreciate that she's given me a few

minutes of privacy.

I call Bella's phone but it goes directly to voice mail. I glance at my watch; she's probably gone to

lunch now and left her phone behind to charge. She often forgets to plug it in at night, and that

memory of her, surfacing so easily, is comforting and cleansing.

"Hey, B, I just got your email. Thank you, I love it. And you. And I just wanted to say that...I know.

I _know_, baby. This distance sucks at least six ways to Sunday. I had this idea, though. Let's get

takeout tonight and eat it together while we Skype. We can pretend, at least. Okay, hope you're

having a good day, and I'll see you - maybe six-thirty?"

After I hang up, I hear the words again: _This distance sucks..._

I do a quick search of YouTube and find some old Dire Straights. _Here I am again in this mean_

_old town, and you're so far away from me..._

Smiling as the lyrics play through my head, I drop the link into an email for Bella. But the song

doesn't say it all for me, and I type after it:

_I miss you every time I take a breath, Bella...with an ache in my chest that never goes away._

_Don't ever question what you are to me, because the truth is, you're everything. I'll talk to you_

_soon._

**~ O ~**

I almost send my computer crashing to the floor while I make room for everything on my desk. At

the last minute, I decide to move it all to the coffee table. That's where we used to eat all of our

meals at my place in Forks, and maybe that memory is a good omen.

When it's all settled on the table, I position the laptop so that my dinner is in camera range, and I

call Bella. When her video appears, I _tsk _and shake my head, teasing. She's wearing one of my

old button downs that she never returned - along with her pearls. _Another good sign, perhaps._

Her long hair has grown out a bit, and it falls in soft pieces around her face.

I have no right to expect her mercy, but she graces me with a tired smile anyway. _Mother of God,_

_she is always more beautiful than I remember, every single time._

She squints at her screen. "What's for dinner? Looks like Italian."

I tip the plate up just a bit, toward the camera. "Manicotti?" she asks, and then her mouth forms a

little "o."

"Remember the night you showed me how to make it?"

"Yes," she answers, and I wonder what she's remembering about that night: all the innuendos

while we stuffed the shells, the amazing sex in the kitchen, or the first-time _I-love-yous_.

"Is that a _flower_?" she asks, and I hold up the water glass for her to see the single red rose.

Bella's not a flower person, but I'm a little desperate.

"Like the fancy vase? We're stylin,' Miss Swan."

On the other side of my screen, she raises a spoonful of some indistinguishable liquid to her lips.

"What are you having?" I ask her.

"Just some chicken vegetable soup and these vile crackers. Don't feel like eating much."

"Are you okay?" I search her face, trying to gauge if she's sick.

"Well..." Her eyes dart to one side. "I'm still a little hung over from last night."

"You were out drinking?" I say this carefully, in an off-hand tone. In all honesty, I probably mean

"You were out drinking _without me?" _Because with the exception of the night I met her, the only

time I've ever seen her drink is in the safety of my apartment, with me.

"Kate and her boyfriend took me to a frat party. It was a last minute thing. I don't really like beer,

as you know, and there was some really cheap, rot-gut wine. I was mostly dead this morning."

She doesn't have to say it, and she'd probably deny it anyway, but I know the reason she drank

too much was because of my behavior on Skype.

I search her face, looking for confirmation of that, and then I realize that I don't need to know. She

deserves every bit of groveling, every form of apology, whether or not I was the cause.

"I'm sorry, B. I was a real prick last night. You didn't deserve to be on the receiving end of my bad

mood. I should have postponed our chat until I was in a better place. I'm so sorry."

Bella is silent, but she nods, and I'm relieved to have my apology out there, however weak-assed

it probably sounds.

"You can tell me, you know," she says matter-of-factly, as if she were the older one. "About what

was wrong last night."

I want to tell her, but I have no intention of doing so. At this point in my life, there is no one I'm

closer to than Bella. But at the same time, there's no one else's happiness I care more about than

hers. I'm not about to tell her that I've managed to dig myself a bigger shit-hole than I realized,

and now it's up to me to climb out of it. She doesn't need to smell any of that.

"Is it your classes?" she prompts. "Is it the writing?"

"No and yes." Bella squints at this answer. "I'm sorry. I need to figure some things out. I'll talk

about it, I promise, but I can't yet - not without sounding like some crazy person."

"You're promising, though?"

"Yes, I just need to sort some things out first. Will you promise me something, too?"

She squints again. Perhaps this is her new mannerism, and she's finally kicked her habit of biting

the inside corner of her mouth. Or maybe she needs her vision checked.

"Promise me you'll be careful when you're out," I tell her. "I know I said you should have fun, but I

know what can happen at college parties. Don't drink anything a stranger hands you... that kind of

thing. Promise."

"I will, but only if _you _promise to lay off the drinking a bit - especially when you're feeling

pressured or you're having a hard time writing. Drinking to cope, it's just a bad road to go down,

Peter. You should know that, having worked behind a bar."

Wise words from a nineteen-year old. Then again, she's a cop's daughter.

"Okay. I promise."

Bella drags her spoon back and forth through her soup a few times, and then lets it rest against

the bowl. "There's something else I need to tell you."

I swallow. "Oh?"

"I've been talking to Edward...a little."

And then I freeze. "Why?"

_If he's been calling her, I'll kill him. That presumptuous ass. What does he think, that she's fair_

_game now that she's alone at school?_

"Has he been calling you?"

"No. No phone calls, just emails."

"Why? What does he want?" I push my plate away, my voice rising. "You know what? Don't

answer that. I know what he wants."

"Peter," she says, her voice weary. She closes her eyes and shoves her hair back off her

forehead. "He sent one email before I left Forks, apologizing –again – and offering to be friends. I

didn't answer it until just the other day. And then when I was a little drunk last night, I sent him a

text."

"Okay..." Unfortunately, I've been around enough drunk people to imagine that scenario easily.

Your inhibitions are lowered, you want to reach out to someone, and your phone's right there.

"So, why the text?"

"Because Kate and Garrett were all kissy-face, and I wanted to talk to someone, and you weren't

signed into chat. And because of the emails, Edward was back in my contact list, and I wanted

brag to someone about my job offer, so I told him. And he said 'yay, good for you,' and then he

told me to be careful, because from my typing, I'm sure he could tell I was drunk." She shrugs.

"And that was it."

I struggle with a response, stymied by an onslaught of "should haves" and "could haves," and the

realization of just how badly I messed up last night.

Which is not to say that my guilt absolves Cullen of anything, however.

"Say something, please," Bella tells me, her voice quieter now.

"I'm suspicious of his motives, Bella. You know it's hard for me to trust Edward. Leopards, spots,

all that crap."

"You know what? I refuse to make this more than it is. It's just a few short emails, and one stupid,

drunken chat, maybe 3 or 4 lines, max. He's just being nice, Peter. And he's been supportive, not

pushy, or...or inappropriate."

_Supportive_. That fucking stings, but I deserve it.

Bella stares at me, chin raised while she gives a tense, almost imperceptible shake of her head

and a little gust of frustration escapes from her.

While we continue to look at each other, one side of her chestnut hair falls forward around her

face, and my hand twitches toward the screen with a will of its own. She catches her hair with her

finger and tucks it back behind her ear.

_I wanted to do that. I should be doing that._

"Why is Edward so hard for us to get past?" she asks.

"I'll never be objective about him, I guess."

"But why? Why do you have to be so judgmental about him? Is it jealousy –"

"No, that's – I don't know. It's more complicated than that." I brace the back of my neck with both

hands and gave it crack while I struggle for the words. _I'm not proud of this_. "I mean, aside from

the fact that I can never be objective about someone who hurt you, he was your first love, B. He'll

always be that for you. And it's not enough that he looks like a...a fucking Abercrombie model; no,

he's going to be a doctor, too. And his whole family still adores you –"

"Peter! Listen to yourself. _I'm _supposed to be the insecure one, remember?" Her mouth plays at a

smile, and I answer with my own, it's half-grin, half-grimace. We both have self-deprecating

senses of humor, so much so that sometimes it becomes a ridiculous little competition between

us.

"What can I say, babe? I guess you don't have a monopoly on the insecurities market, after all."

I want to drop this subject like a bad habit. My time with her is too important to let it all go to hell

over Cullen. Still, I'm glad she told me about him, because I don't want secrets between us. We

don't need anything else between us right now. The miles are more than enough.

"I guess I'm a little irrational," I admit. "But it's because I love you, B."

She closes her eyes and smiles again, this one almost beatific, as if she is lit from within.

I badly need to touch her right now. I need to run my nose along her jaw, and leave kisses on her

neck, and hear her little moans and quiet sighs. I want to gather every bit of her against me and

bury myself in the scent and the warmth and the softness that is my Bella.

I've missed her for so long that it feels like a grief I've simply learned to live with. It's a sadness of

its own, one that's there every morning when I wake, and the last thing I'm conscious of before I

fall asleep.

Bella moves her soup away to the side and leans forward on her elbows, closer to me. She

reaches out with her index finger and touches it to her screen.

"I don't want an Abercrombie model, or a doctor, or an economist, or even a guy who's won a

Pulitzer. I just want you, Peter Bennett, the guy who melts my heart and makes my knees wobbly.

That's all I want."

I touch my finger on the screen to hers, overcome by this girl.

And _I'm _supposed to the dangerous one.

**~ O ~**

In the morning, Sunday, I steel myself for my weekly phone call to my parents. After the words my

father and I exchanged the other day, I don't expect this call to go well. I could blow it off

completely, but that would hurt my mother, and I try to keep her out of the crossfire as much as I

can.

Early this morning, well before dawn, I laid awake thinking about Bella, and that frat party, and

Cullen, and all of it.

I knew enough from studying economics that behavior could be at least partially understood by

analyzing cause and effect.

Before this semester started, I was in Forks, working at a job I enjoyed that paid my bills and

allowed me time to write. I wrote nearly every day, then, and sometimes it felt easy, and I would

be happy with the words.

And I had Bella in my life. We breathed the same air then, lived under the same set of stars. We

were each other's home plate.

Now, we're separated by 750 miles. I'm doing work that I largely despise. And though I struggle to

listen, I no longer hear the voices of the characters that used to hang around my head.

And Bella is talking to Cullen again, and getting drunk at frat parties, and worrying about me.

And I'm drinking too much and not there when she needs me.

It doesn't take a PhD to see the root cause of these problems. Or to know that I'm the one who

has to fix them.

I pick up my phone, but instead of my parent's home, I dial my mother's cell. She answers on the

third ring.

"Hey, mom. I need to talk."

**Chapter Nine**

"So... _Isabella_," Kate says, "you look like Rachel McAdams the morning after she jumped Ryan

Gosling in _The Notebook_.

The morning after a Skype dinner date with Peter, Kate and I head to the dining hall for breakfast.

Over bagels and coffee, my willowy, blonde roommate, (and Diane Sawyer wannabe) practices

her interview skills.

I have a Peter-hangover, and she probably senses my weakness.

"Excuse me, _Katrina_?" Her geeky movie reference did make me laugh, so I _almost _forgive her for

using my full first name.

"Judging by that sultry smile on your face this morning, it looks like you and Peter had a good

time last night."

"We did." I pick up my mug and blow gently across the top.

"And you forgave Mr. Crankypants for being a dickhead?"

I swallow a sip of coffee and shrug. "Yeah. I mean, I'm not making excuses for him, but you

should see him, Kate. He seems so stressed out right now."

"Ah. And you're worried. What's the problem?"

"I can't get him to talk about it." And that frustrates me to no end. It's a double standard that he's

imposing. If there were anything I was deliberately keeping from _him_, he wouldn't stand for it.

"If I had to guess, I'd say it's probably a combination of school and writing, with a generous

helping of crap from his father."

"And in that respect, he's no different from a lot of us," Kate says, as she spreads a thick layer of

cream cheese on her bagel. I have no idea how this girl stays so thin - I'm well on my way to the

infamous "Freshman Fifteen."

"But at least you guys are okay again?" she prompts.

Honestly, I'm still not sure, because sometimes Peter's evasiveness about what's really going on

with him digs up some of my old, buried insecurities. Maybe what's really bothering Peter is our

relationship. Maybe he doesn't feel the same about me anymore because we've haven't seen

each other since the day he kissed me goodbye almost three months ago. It would be just like

him to keep all of that from me until after the semester is over, so that we can talk face to face.

I'm pretty good at letting my thoughts run to some bad places, and I'm not proud about what that

says about my need for reassurance.

But dissected psyche doesn't make for a tasty breakfast treat. _Are we okay again? Damned if I_

_know, Kate._

I muster a smile for my nosy but well-meaning roommate. "I think we are."

She leans back in her chair and speaks at the ceiling. "_Thank you_, God. If I had to listen to 'Letter

to Elise' one more time, I'd have to sacrifice some baby bunnies."

I choke on a bite of my sesame bagel, spraying crumbs and cream cheese onto the table

"And I don't think you want that on your conscience, Swan," she continues.

_Certainly not. _Thanks to Peter and our relationship and my workload at school, my conscious is

full-up right now. (Add in my parents, who drop blatant hints that I should call them more often,

and I'm well past flood stage.) I obsess over my boyfriend's problems, probably more than is

normal for a nineteen-year-old girl.

But then, I also love him more than is probably normal. He's unlike any guy I've ever known, and

certainly not like any of the guys my friends date. Compassionate, scary-smart, respectful. Funny

as hell.

_And his hands and those shoulders and that chin and his tongue and..._

_Oh, get hold of yourself, Bella._

That's why Peter's insecurity about Edward's looks and his life of privilege makes me shake my

head. I lived in Edward's orbit for a year, and I'd take Peter, with his jealous streak and his

neurotic tendencies and his messed up relationship with his father, over Edward Cullen, any day.

And it both worries _and _infuriates me that he won't talk about the things that are obviously

worrying _him _right now. It couldn't have been an easy transition from the simple routine of life in

quiet Forks, where he had a steady job and almost limitless time to write, to the pressure at Penn.

Instead of with its time-sucking workload of classes and reading and papers.

Back in Forks we had our own bubble, where our lives were simpler, uncomplicated. Simple was

easy, and there was nothing poking at our delicate enclosure. To say that college had burst that

bubble was so clichéd as to be cringe-worthy. Rather, we'd been forced to step out of it.

Or perhaps the distance between us had burst it from the inside.

We part ways after breakfast: Kate is headed to the library to meet Garrett, and I need to catch

the bus to the food bank to interview the director about the next newsletter.

"You didn't finish that coffee," Kate observes, as we gather our mess onto the cafeteria tray.

I offer no comment, but she's probably noting that it's not the first time I've been unable to finish

coffee. Lately, my staple beverages - coffee, tea, and Diet Coke - have been giving me

heartburn. I'm not about to give them up, however. Chewing a couple of antacids usually helps, at

least for a while, because I'm certainly not about to give up caffeine the same week as midterms.

Eating something also helps, because the heartburn seems to come back when I'm hungry

(hence, my progress on the Freshman Fifteen.)

Oh my way out of the dining hall, I grab a few packages of crackers from the empty salad bar and

stuff them into my backpack.

**~ O ~**

The first bottleneck of due dates in my schedule is this week, and each day I make a task list of

what I need to accomplish. As if two papers, three exams, and one video piece aren't enough to

produce, I have to get next month's food bank newsletter out to the director for her review and

approval. It's almost Thanksgiving, and November is their biggest fund-raising month, so this

issue is twice the usual length.

At 1:00 a.m. I stretch in my desk chair and rotate my achy wrists. I've been writing profiles of

three food-bank users, intending to personalize for the donors – and _potential _donors – the

people who depend on the program to supplement their grocery purchases. I worry, though, that

my profiles sound too clinical, as if I was presenting case studies for my sociology class, instead

of describing living, breathing people.

There's the 58 year-old electrician who lost his job, can't find another in this economy, and is

about to walk away from the mortgage on his home.

And there's the single mom with three teenage boys who eat five loves of bread and drink six

gallons of milk a week. With rising milk prices, her paycheck no longer covers the grocery bill.

And all-too common case: the elderly woman who, without the boxes of mac and cheese she can

get from the food bank, would be sharing cans of Fancy Feast with her cats.

I'd like to float this article past someone for feedback, but right now, I can't impose on any of my

friends, whose schedules look just like mine. And Kate, who just went to bed, is already sound

asleep.

I'd love for Peter to read it; he's really good at these kinds of descriptions when he writes his

characters. I glance at my chat list, but he isn't signed in. Impulsively, I pick up my phone and hit

speed-dial number, and then hang-up, panicked, when I remember that it's an hour later there.

Instead, I email it to him, and hope he has a few minutes to look it over in the morning. I promise

him phone sex if he can get it back to me tomorrow.

I reach for the bottle of tropical-fruit flavored Tums on the corner of my desk and pick out three of

the orange-flavored ones, my favorites, and pop them into my mouth.

I run my pen down the list of tasks I had planned for today – technically _yesterday_, now. I have an

exam in Mandarin first thing in the morning, and despite studying for it earlier, I can't remember

any of the verbs associated with eating a meal in China. I reach for the textbook and pop the

accompanying CD into my laptop.

Apparently, I'm in for a long night, and I root around in my desk drawers in search of provisions.

Success appears in the form of Renee's most recent care package, inside of which I find a

package of instant Starbucks.

Best invention _ever_.

**~ O ~**

The incessant beeping begins at 7:30 a.m., its volume and pitch increasing steadily as it cuts

through the haze of too-little sleep.

"Shut that fucking thing off or I will _end _you, Swan." Kate says in a calm, cold voice, like a

character in a Bourne movie.

I slap my alarm into submission, and my empty stomach makes itself known, not with a rumble,

but with a burning sensation in the middle of my chest.

Before she climbs down from her loft, I steal a few Club crackers from the box on Kate's desk and

stuff them into my mouth. Eating almost always makes the burning go away.

I had this stomach issue once before, when Edward left for UW last year, and things between us

became strained and weird. After he finally broke up with me, my stomach got better, though the

pain simply moved to my heart.

My head also aches – a dull, heavy sensation that feels like a hangover, but is actually from lack

of sleep. It wasn't enough to stay up until 3:00 a.m. studying; I also tossed and turned with

disturbing dreams.

When I reach into my purse for a couple of Advil, I find only a few left in the bottle and make a

mental note to add them to my shopping list.

**~ O ~**

The midterm in Mandarin goes well, and when I get back to my room, I check email and see that

Peter's sent the food bank piece back to me.

_Only one suggestion, babe. Try switching the profiles to present – it will give them more impact._

_Otherwise, I think it's perfect. So are you. Can I collect my fee soon? Love you, miss you, me._

His praise makes me grin like a fool. I feel a happy glow that comes not only from being proud of

my own work, but also because _Peter _is proud of it. He wasn't initially supportive of my job writing

for the food bank, so sharing this issue with him raises my spirits as high as scoring A on any of

my exams.

Energized, I pop open my laptop and try his suggestion, switching all my verb tenses to present.

When I'm finished, I read the whole article aloud. He's right: the profiles of the people have more

intimacy and a stronger sense of immediacy. I email the newsletter to the director for her approval

and cross off another task.

After Sociology in the afternoon, I hurry to a meeting at the Medill library with a group from my

21st Century Media class. We have a collaborative project due Friday - in two days. We have to

design a format for a web version of a small-town, local newspaper. A tall, lanky guy named

Kevin is worried about his Bio midterm and hasn't finished a design for the masthead yet. He

works on his laptop, frantic, while the rest of us debate whether we should enable readers to

comment on every article. I offer my two cents: that comment threads are often as enlightening as

– and sometimes more entertaining - than the articles themselves.

"Yes, and sometimes they're a forum for people to act like assholes," counters Namita.

"Yes, and to do so anonymously, hence the attraction," I add, grinning. In the end, we decide that

to encourage traffic on our news site, we'll allow commenting on every article. After all, it's a

small-town paper, and readers might have some good gossip about their local politicians.

While we work on a final list of the main links off the home page, the burning in my chest returns,

this time with a vengeance and I chew a few more antacids.

But they don't help for long, and I wonder if I have enough spending money left this week to

afford a bottle of Pepcid from the drug store close to campus. Pepcid sounds like a drug for old

people, not teenagers. Then again, I've been going through the Tums and Rolaids as if they were

candy.

**~ O ~**

On the Thursday night of midterm week, like many of the students on my floor, I'm up into the

small hours of the morning, studying for exams and writing papers. Around 3:30 a.m., I debate

whether to just stay up and go to classes, or to get a couple of hours of sleep. I try for the sleep.

But when I lay down in my bed, my heartburn gets much worse and I try unsuccessfully to sleep

while sitting up. I had too much soda tonight, too much coffee earlier in the day. That must be

what's wrong.

The pain gets much worse, and soon I'm pacing around the dorm room, in tears and trying – and

failing - not to wake up Kate.

"Bella?" She sits up in her bed and watches me pacing with a hand over my abdomen. When she

sees that I'm crying, she jumps down from her loft. "What is it? Your stomach?"

I can only nod, because I'm embarrassed to be crying and I can't slow down my breathing. It

hurts like a sonofabitch, this pain, and it feels like a hippo is sitting on my chest.

I'm nineteen years old, and I can't believe I'm having a heart attack.

Kate helps me back into my bed, and I lay on my side, curling into myself, making my body

smaller. Maybe the pain will lessen if I'm small. With gentle fingers, Kate pushes my hair back

from my face, over and over, like my mother used to when I was sick.

"Mom," I whisper in a choked sob, and the pain worsens as I realize, panic-stricken, that no one I

love is here, that none of them can even get here quickly. They are all so far away.

Kate calls Jenn, our RA, who is at our door almost immediately. She and Kate exchange hushed

words, and then Kate phones Garrett. He has a car and I hear her ask him to drive us to the

university's student health center.

I shake my head, protesting, because a trip to the health center will completely mess up my

schedule for Friday. If I'm lucky, they'll let me make up the two exams, but I'll miss the

presentation in 21st Century Media. Jenn shushes me, assures me that it will all work out, and

asks if I want her to call my parents.

"No," I answer, around my gasping breaths. "They live too far away." Though I wish they were

here, because pain on this scale makes me want to have only the people who know me best

close by.

"Bella," Kate says, "then let me call Peter. He's closer. He'd want to know if you were sick."

Again, I shake my head. He's in crunch mode, too. It would throw his exams and papers into

chaos if he left school right now. "No... let's wait... See what they say at the clinic."

Garrett and Kate half-carry me to the car. His driving is smooth, despite the tension I hear in his

voice. I ride in the backseat, curled up on my side again, this time with my head in Kate's lap. I

mumble that I can't be sick, that there is too much to do, that I cannot scare Charlie.

"Charlie..." I whisper, crying again. _My dad_... He never wanted me to go this far away.

"Bella," Garrett says, his voice low, "please try and relax."

When I break a sweat and begin shaking, I stop crying. In my silence, I slip into panic again, and

Kate encourages me to take slow, even breaths. But it hurts to inhale, and I clutch at the fabric of

her sweatpants.

At the health center, I'm trying to describe the pain to the nurse when I suddenly vomit onto the

floor. Stomach acid hurts like hell on its way up.

And then there's the blood.

There's a quiet but hurried efficiency among the night-duty nurses at the clinic as they examine

me, and I nod and shake my head in answer to a barrage of questions about my health history

and any and all substances that I have eaten or drunk in the past few days.

A doctor arrives, sleepy-faced and young, stubble on his face. They must have woken him, but he

doesn't seem to mind. He smiles, but his eyes are serious as he tells me that soon I can have

something for the pain, but that they need to see inside my stomach because I am bleeding

somewhere internally.

"I hate blood," I whisper to him, and vomit again, reinforcing my point.

And that's the last thought I remember having before waking up in one of their hospital beds.

**~ O ~**

"The lengths some people go to get out of midterms," Kate says, helping me into my clothes.

It's Saturday afternoon and I'm being discharged, and she and Garrett have come to pick me up.

I shoot Kate a dirty look. She knows I'm already worried about the exams I missed, and that a

"tendency to internalize my stress" is just one of the reasons I landed here in the predawn hours

of yesterday.

The doctor had called in a specialist, and then sedated me so that they could run a scope down

my esophagus, looking for the source of the bleeding. They diagnosed me on the spot with a

stomach ulcer, which had just begun to bleed. They caught it early, the doctor said, and I was

lucky that I had suffered no other complications, such as severe anemia. He was able to stop the

bleeding while he was examining my stomach.

They kept me there on Friday for a follow-up exam with the specialist, and for observation. The

doctor put me on a high dose of a prescription medicine, something that will block my stomach

from making so much acid. I'm also being discharged with a whole list of restrictions: no coffee,

no Advil, no alcohol. Bland foods until the ulcer has a chance to heal. All of this is temporary, he

reassured me, until my stomach is better – _and _until I learn to manage my stress.

Kate was all over this last directive, searching the Internet for local yoga classes and looking for

relaxing places to walk around Evanston. I told her that "exercise" and "relaxing" are a

contradiction in terms, as far as I'm concerned. She ignored that, and then threatened to tell my

parents and Peter about the ulcer.

Score: Kate.

Because I'm over eighteen, the clinic was not obligated to inform my parents about my health

problems. And I've decided not to tell them either – at least not until I go home for the holiday

break. There is no point in worrying them over something that's already been dealt with, already

taken care of. And frankly, I don't have the time or the energy to deal with their questions.

I know what needs to be done in order to get better, and only I can do it.

I had spent most of yesterday sleeping off the sedative, as well as catching up on the sleep lost

during the week. A consequence of all of that power napping was that I lay wide-awake for a long

time last night. I thought a great deal about what happened to me. And I thought about what

needed to change.

If I follow the doctor's orders, I'll heal, and if I take care of myself, I will stay healthy. And that is

the crux of the issue, right there: _If I take care of myself..._

When I was a little girl, my mother buckled my seat belt for me. "Precious cargo!" she would say

brightly, every time.

When I had grown a bit, I could manage my own seat belt. But each time Renee started the car,

she would glance at me in the backseat, to make sure I had buckled up. "Precious cargo?" she

asked.

At some point, after I had grown even more, I began to notice that half the time, my mother would

forget to buckle her _own _seatbelt. In my "adult" voice, I would sternly remind her. I imagine that

Phil is _still _doing so.

Charlie didn't need reminding about his seat belt, but he did need other things. Someone to tell

him that poultry didn't have the same shelf life as ham, that too much fabric softener was bad for

the towels. That green vegetables not only existed, they also were easy to microwave.

When I wasn't taking care of people, I was still filling roles that I was sure they needed.

I let parts of myself and my own needs be overshadowed by what Edward thought we should be.

And when Edward left and took his shadow with him, I walked toward the light that Peter held in

his hands. Peter_..._who called me his Polaris. His touchstone.

It would be easy to phone both of them and tell them that I had developed an ulcer and spent two

days in the hospital and now I needed to change my lifestyle. It's what they would want me to do.

But if I was serious about making changes, about taking care of my health, then those changes

needed to start with _myself_.

**~ O ~**

On Monday morning, I meet with the professors whose exams I missed on Friday, and I show

them my form from the health center stating that I had been ill. They agree to let me make up

both exams.

The professor who teaches 21st Century Media agrees to watch our team presentation again, this

time with my participation.

And the director of the food bank said she loved my newsletter.

Over dinner that evening, Kate pulls a piece of paper from her pocket and lays it in front of me.

On it, she's circled a yoga class, taught here on campus twice a week. She says she'll even do it

with me, if I want her to.

"No, but thanks," I tell her. "I can go by myself."

**Chapter Ten**

_In the dream, I can never swim fast enough._

_My arms reach forward and I lead with my shoulders, then my elbows, and finally my hands. I_

_slice through the water, rolling from one side to the other to make myself long, "long in the water,"_

_like Coach said._

_But it still takes forever until I reach her, out there in the middle of the lake. She always slips_

_under just before I get there. I surface dive and open my eyes to the cold dark._

_And there she is: ethereal, pale and lovely. Her long blonde hair floats around her head like a_

_delicate water plant. She sinks, falling so fast that I am paralyzed by the horror. Her eyes are_

_huge and terrified as she reaches for me, her outstretched hand clawing at the water but finding_

_no purchase. She writhes as she struggles, only to sink farther into the dark._

_I push down through the water, parting it with my arms, shoving it behind me in a frenzy to reach_

_her before she disappears from sight. The sunlight does not reach the bottom; the lake is that_

_deep. Or perhaps there is no bottom and she will sink forever._

_Finally, my hand locks onto her wrist, so slender, her skin so soft and pliable that I wonder if my_

_fingers will pass right through her. I kick hard, pulling us both to the surface as I look up toward_

_the sunlight._

Up, up, up_, I chant. An incantation. A prayer._

_We break the surface, and she gasps and wheezes, gulping air as she fights to climb on top of_

_me, struggling to get herself as far out of the water as far as she can - higher, where there is air,_

_where she can breathe again._

_I fight against her and for her, against her panic - and mine._

_I remember from lifeguard class that drowning victims will do anything to save themselves, even if_

_it means jeopardizing the life of the person trying to save them._

**~ O ~**

"Hey, Mom. I need to talk."

Over the phone, I hear the _tap tap _of fingers on a keyboard, and I can picture hers flying with

usual speed, finishing whatever thought she was in the process of transforming into bits and

bytes. I wait for her to pause, my signal that she's ready to talk.

"Peter! What are you...uh... how are you, sweetheart?"

I seldom call her on her cell phone because she's usually too busy to pick it up, immersed in

meetings with colleagues and the statistics classes she teaches. And besides, it's Sunday

morning, the time I usually call home to talk to _both _of my parents. They each get on an extension

and we engage in our own case study in awkward family dynamics. My father interrogates me

about Penn and my classwork, and my mother asks if I'm eating well and getting enough rest.

They don't ask about my writing. And I've long since learned not to volunteer information about it.

"I'm good," I answer. Like so many other times in my life, I worry that she can hear the lie behind

the words. Or maybe I want her to hear it. "Um...am I catching you at a bad time?"

"No, not at all. I'm just working on an article for IEEE." She pronounces it "I triple E," but I know

what she means because there are stacks of that organization's journals in her office, and she's

been a board member several times over the years.

"Publish or perish, right?"

"Always, sweetheart, always. Now, what's up? Why are you calling my cell? Should I get your –"

"No, no! I need to talk to just you, Mom. In fact, I'd rather he not know that we're talking right

now."

There's a long moment of silence, and I can imagine my mother sitting there at her desk, up in

her office on the second floor of their tasteful home in Bellevue. Maybe she's torn between her

curiosity about this call and her loyalty to my father. If I could see her face right now, her eyes

might be narrowed, her brows knit over her internal conflict.

"Okay," she says, drawing out the two syllables cautiously.

"Hang on one second. Just need to get my coffee." I need the mug in my hand, something solid to

grasp while my head fumbles around, organizing my thoughts. I had this argument prepared

about why I needed to make some big changes in my life. It was a completely rational speech,

built on factual observations, because those are the things that speak most clearly to my

academic parents. It was devoid of emotion – and for me, that's no small accomplishment.

Is this the speech I deliver? Shit, no.

Instead, I open my mouth and a tangle of thoughts pour out. I trip, stumble, and fall all over my

self in the process of telling her what a bullshit mess I've made of everything.

I try to explain that I'm no longer even the slightest bit interested in studying economics. That

while I used to not care one way or the other, I now actively _hate _my major.

That sometimes I want to leave school altogether and get a full-time job somewhere, but then

other times I think I should stay in school and try to get accepted into a writing program.

To my mother's credit, she listens quietly, letting me stumble around for the right words. She's

patient while I try to qualify my statements about school in general and Econ in particular. And for

a woman who prefers to speak about confidence intervals and standards of deviation, her silence

is surprising. I only know that she's still there because I hear her sighing occasionally.

She asks fewer questions than I expected, and I have to wonder whether part of her had been

expecting this call.

But when I confess that I have no idea how to talk about this with my father, her calm objectivity

slips.

"Ah. I see now. That's why you wanted to speak to _me _first, isn't it?"

"Well –"

"I'm sorry, but this is where you're on your own, Peter. I can't argue this for you."

"I'm not asking you to, Mother. I'm just asking for some help in approaching him."

She sighs again. "Peter. You're my son, and I'll always support you in whatever you decide to do,

even if your father doesn't. But I won't run interference for you, and I won't argue with him on your

behalf."

I hear a familiar tone in my mother's voice - I grew up hearing it. It's that firm, resolved manner

of speaking that a mother develops early but uses forever, the tone whose subtext is: _You have_

_my answer, now don't argue with me._

"And I don't want you to," I tell her. "I wouldn't put you in that position." And that's the honest truth;

I wouldn't throw my worst enemy into the lion's den with my father, much less her - especially

now, when the two of them have finally achieved something approaching a comfortable peace.

For years, my mother kept her own career ambitions in check for the sake of his success and my

happiness and stability. Over twelve years, they had been apart more than they were together,

and when they finally _did _live in the same house seven days a week, there was inevitable conflict

and negotiation. After a rocky year or two, they finally settled into a partnership that seemed to

work for them. I could only imagine that the last thing my mother wanted was to upset the

balance.

"You'll have to make your own case for leaving Penn again," my mother says.

"I know," I answer quietly. It's not like I need permission to leave, but they _did _pay for two and a

half years of an Ivy League education, and to my father, quitting now will mean that he threw his

money away. And besides, in my family, "impulsive" moves just aren't _done_.

"And really, Peter," she continues, her voice softening, "while I wish you would finish college –

regardless of your major – what I want most is for you to be happy."

I swallow hard, unable to respond. I haven't been happy since I left Bella standing at her door

almost three months ago, and that awareness settles around my shoulders like a heavy blanket

of sadness. While I wish I was in the same room with my mother having this discussion, I'm also

glad I'm not, because she'd see me tearing up like a little boy who can't hit a curveball to save his

life.

We exchange a few more words, the set-up to our usual goodbye, but just before she hangs up,

my mother adds: "Peter, when you speak to your father, don't let your anger get away from you.

He'll be more likely to listen if you're calm and respectful." I suspect that she's speaking from her

own experience, and as cold as her advice might seem, I take that into consideration.

"Thanks, Mom."

I don't bother to tell her that I've tried that approach before. It didn't work then, and given what I

have to tell him, I've no reason to think it'll work this time, either.

**~ O ~**

"What's up, Pete?" Riley asks when he walks through the door after his Wednesday classes. He

tosses his backpack on the sofa and heads to the kitchen to grab a can of soda from the fridge.

I swivel in my chair, away from my computer. "Hey. Got a minute?"

He pauses in his tracks and looks at me. "Uh-oh, what? I know - I ate the last of the ice cream.

Dude, I was starving. I'll buy more!"

I wave off his apology. He _did _eat the rest of my ice cream, the shithead, but that's the least of it.

"Sit," I order, and he complies, his expression wary. I jerk my head toward my laptop. "I'm writing

up an ad for another roommate for you."

His jaw falls open. "You're leaving?"

"Yeah. I'm not coming back after the break." _There_. _I said it. _It's the first time I've told anyone

since I made the decision two days ago.

"_Seriously? _Holy shit. What are you going to do?"

"I'm not sure. I'm either going to look for a job, or I'm going to transfer to a writing program

somewhere. But I can't do this anymore." I lace my fingers together and pull on the back of my

neck, popping a few vertebrae. "This place...and the classes..."

"Yeah?" he prompts.

I shake my head. I don't even know anymore how to describe everything that's wrong. _Some_

_writer, huh? _"My life's a fucked-up mess, man. It's time to clean it up."

Riley pops the top on his Mountain Dew. "What did your parents say?" he asks, and takes an

audible gulp of soda.

"I told my mother that I was thinking about it, but I haven't told my father anything yet."

"Why not?"

"I can't tell him until I've worked out a few more details. If it's one thing I've learned over the

years, it's not to head into battle with him until you're locked and loaded."

"Don't put it off, Peter," Riley says, his voice suddenly serious. "Figure it out and tell him. Soon."

I rub my hand, hard, against the back of my neck. "I know. I _will_. I'm just..._fuck_, this is going to be

bad, man. Just...bad."

"Come on. You can do this. I've seen you rip a few people new ones when they've pissed you off

enough. You're no pussy."

"Yeah, thanks, but you don't know my father. He built a career being one of the original BSDs. I

used to think they invented the label for him."

Riley shoots me a puzzled look.

"Big swinging dicks," I answer, and Riley barks out a laugh. "You know - the guy who brings in

the revenue, the one who won't stop until his fund is making more money than anyone else's."

"And your father is one of these big swinging dicks?"

"Biggest one in the room. Always."

We're both silent, and Riley takes another long pull on his soda, releasing a burp before he

speaks. "Okay. So it's once more unto the breech, then."

My jaw falls open. "Dude, did you just quote Shakespeare to me?" Riley Fraser, whose serious

reading material consists of _Maxim _and _Sports Illustrated_, just quoted _Henry V._

He shrugs. "It seemed appropriate to your situation."

Slouching there on our beat-up old sofa, he gestures with his Dew as he speaks: "'In peace

there's nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility; but when the blast of war

blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger...'"

I stare at him, astonished. He's the very essence of a contradiction: his shaggy hair and rumpled

clothes, his unshaven-face, quoting with passionate eloquence one of Shakespeare's most

famous battle speeches. He even spits on some of the words.

"'Stiffen sinews, summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage; then lend the

eye a terrible aspect..."

Riley raises his Mountain Dew to his lips and drains the can. Crushing it in his hands, he stands

and slaps me on the back. "You can do this, my king."

**~ O ~**

It's been a typical week of classes and assignments, but instead of dragging along in tedium and

frustration, it's flown right by.

Overwhelming dread will do that to you. This weekend I'm going to tell my father that I'm leaving

Penn. The prospect of an argument with him – especially one on an epic scale, as this one will

undoubtedly be – is there everyday, at the forefront of my thoughts.

We're beginning the ramp-up to finals, and in typical Riley fashion, he decides that we need to

blow off some steam in preparation.

Late Friday afternoon, he texts me to let me know that a couple of guys are stopping by later for a

few beers and some darts. Except that those guys mention it to a few other people, and by 8:00

pm, ten or eleven people are crowded into our tiny apartment. There are pizza boxes scattered all

around the place, and empty bottles line the kitchen counter. A rather competitive dart game is

underway in the living room, and a poker game has just started at our kitchen table.

Riley's a big fan of classic rock, and judging by the volume of the music blaring from his

speakers, he doesn't care who knows it. Somewhere through the strains of "Another Tricky Day,"

I hear my cell phone go off. It's probably Bella, whom I haven't talked to since Tuesday. Between

her schedule and mine we've managed to exchange only a few texts since then. I'm anxious to

tell her about what I've decided, but I want to wait until the weekend, when we'll have more time

to talk. I don't want her worrying about me; she doesn't need the distraction from her own

workload.

My heart rate jumps with the anticipation of hearing her voice, and I smile as I pull the phone from

my pocket.

"Hey, Bennett, is that your _girlfriend_? What does she have, like, radar or something?" Davis

Cooper taunts loudly from his seat at table, and everyone else choruses with whistles and

catcalls.

I turn from the crowd in the kitchen, maneuvering past the dart game and into the hallway.

But instead of Bella's number on my cell phone, I see one I don't immediately recognize. And

then I remember the location of the "203" area code – Connecticut.

_No. It can't be._

I duck into my bedroom and close the door behind me. "Hello?"

"Peter?" asks the small voice on the other end, one I haven't heard in almost two years. Her face

floods my memory: delicate features...long, white-blonde hair... blue-green eyes.

"_Charlotte?"_

"Oh my god, it _is _you! I wasn't sure you'd have the same cell number. How are you?"

If I didn't recognize her voice, I'd almost question whether it was Charlotte on the other end. This

person's voice percolates with happiness, and it doesn't fit the girl I used to know. The last time I

saw her face, it was etched with worry, her fearful eyes darting around as I tried to calmly reason

with her.

Charlotte was my last serious relationship. We were in the Econ program together here at Penn,

and we started dating right after spring break of freshman year. Charlotte is bright, but she

doesn't have a competitive bone in her body, and she wasn't cut out for the atmosphere in a highpressure,

Ivy League school. During sophomore year, the classes and the workload got much

tougher. Despite tutoring help from me, and all of the moral support I had to offer, her grades

continued to slip. By the end of the school year, her parents had yanked her from Penn and set

her up in a business management program at a local college close to Westport.

Seeing her struggle – emotionally as well as scholastically - had scared the shit out of me. Not

because I, too, was failing Econ, but because watching her struggle made me realize that I didn't

give a shit about the program I was slogging through. I told my parents I wanted to change

majors, to study creative writing or go into journalism. My father flatly refused to pay for school if I

left the program.

In the end, we compromised; I could take a break, a year off from school to do whatever I wanted.

They thought I might "get it out of my system," and then be ready to return to Penn. I told myself

the same thing.

Just call me Faust, making my deal with the devil. Like the character of German legend, I sold my

soul to gain "worldly" knowledge. Because how else does a writer learn about life, except by living

it?

At first, Charlotte and I tried to keep the relationship up via emails and phone calls. But she

carried her shame around her like a security blanket she refused to part with. And though I tried, it

was impossible for me to keep my happiness from her. I was back in Forks, tending bar and

surfing and hanging with Jasper again. And I was writing _every day_, and the words were _there_. It

was fulfillment of a kind, and on a scale, that I never thought possible.

"I'm fine," I tell her. "I'm - yeah, I'm good. But, how are _you_?"

"It sounds like I called during a party. Do you need to go? I can call back another time."

"No, no. My roommate's got it. It's just a few people over for pizza and some beers. You know,

end of the week stuff. So, tell me how you are."

"I'm good, Peter. I'm really, really fine." I hear the smile in her voice as she floats those words out

there, letting them settle in my head before she continues. "I'm sorry that I didn't keep in touch

after I left."

"Charlotte you don't have to apologize for that. I know it was a bad time for you, and I probably

kept rubbing my freedom in your face every time I talked about Forks."

"Yeah, that was...pretty much it." She laughs a little nervously. "But a lot has happened since

then, and I wanted to let you know. The biggest news is that I'm getting married."

"You're kidding? That's great! I'm happy for you."

"Thanks. I knew you would be, Peter. You're a really good person."

"So? Tell me about him, tell me what you've been up to. You sound great...happy." Part of me

hates pressuring her to talk about her life. But there's another part - the selfish and envious part

– that wants to know the source of her happiness.

And maybe find out if it's possible for me to find it, too.

"Um... okay, his name is Mark. He moved here last year, and he had been doing cabinet making

and antique restorations for this custom furniture shop. He just bought a property, and now we're

starting our own business doing refinishing and restoration. He's teaching me all about antiques

and furniture construction and tools." Her last few words trail off into a giggle. "It feels so good to

create things, to see this tangible result right there under my hands, you know?"

_Not lately. But at one time, I think I did._

She asks about me, and I tell her about Bella and about school. She asks how the writing is

going.

"It's...a struggle right now. It seems like it's always the first thing to be sacrificed when I run out of

time. And when I finally do get some time, it's been so long that I can't find the story again."

"Peter, you _can't _stop writing. You have to keep trying to make it work."

"You sound like Bella, Char."

"Then maybe Bella would also tell you that your writing is more important than ever right now.

You used to say that it fed your soul. You _need _that now, because _that _place? It'll suck your soul

dry. I should know."

Her directness is startling and leaves me without a comeback. Is it possible she's changed so

much in just a year and a half? Or is the change in her just a side effect of her happiness, the

result of finding the place you belong?

We exchange vows to keep in contact this time, and I tell her that I expect a wedding invitation.

She promises, but only if I swear that I'll bring Bella with me.

I picture Charlotte's face as we say goodbye, and this time her eyes are shining, her face open

and brave.

**~ O ~**

For the rest of the night, I'm a useless, distracted host. I keep replaying Charlotte's phone call,

hearing the change in her voice, and each time I smile spontaneously. At one point I even laugh,

drawing odd looks from a few of the guys.

It has always been a yoke around my neck, the way the things had ended with Charlotte. Instead

of doing more for her, I'd simply handed her off to her parents. And then, when she stopped

answering my emails and taking my calls, I knew it was a de facto breakup. But we'd never put

closure to it, so she still occupied a dark corner in my heart, the same place where we stash our

regrets and our guilt.

And then I met Bella, and I was happier than I'd ever been – happier in _every _aspect of my life.

And though my guilt about Charlotte got a little heavier, I still carried it around anyway. I didn't

know how to exorcise it from that dark corner.

But with just a phone call, Charlotte had done it for me. And the space she opened back up in my

heart was immediately filled with the knowledge of exactly what I needed to do.

Later that night, after Riley had kicked out the last of our friends, I lay in bed, trying to shut down

the steady rush of plans and ideas that filled my brain like a mountain creek that's swollen with

snow melt.

I roll over in bed and reach for my phone on the nightstand. _12:10 a.m. She might want to kill me,_

_if she's asleep_. But I didn't think she'd stay angry for long.

"Hey, you," she murmurs, her delicious, seductive alto barely a whisper. "Everything okay?"

"Everything's very okay. Just can't sleep. I thought if heard your voice, it might help."

"Okay, here's my voice..." I hear her stifling a yawn. "Does it need to be saying anything

intelligent?"

I laugh quietly. From the beginning, I've always loved her sense of humor, sharp and just a bit

wry. Old for her age.

"No, it doesn't. Just sorry I woke you. I hope I didn't wake up Crazy Ivan."

Bella always _tsks _at my endless list of nicknames for Kate. "No, she went up to Boston to meet

Garrett's parents."

"Oh, good. Because she scares me a little, you know? Trust but verify."

She snorts softly. "Good one. Right now, I'm resisting the urge to say something about trickledown

economics.'"

"God, I love your brain."

"Are you going to be able to get to sleep?"

"Yeah, I think so. I love you, B. Close your eyes now."

"Love you. Call me tomorrow?"

"Yeah," I answer, smiling at the ceiling. "I'll talk to you soon, babe."

**~ O ~**

The next morning, I wait until 8:30 Pacific time to call him, after I'm sure he's had his second cup

of coffee but isn't yet deep into his email and his blog subscriptions. My mother answers, and

after greeting her, I ask to speak to my father.

"Remember what I told you," she says, and then I hear her muffled voice, though I can't make out

the words.

"Peter?" he asks, always getting right down to business. "Is something wrong? This is Saturday."

"I know it's Saturday. And no, nothing is wrong. We need to talk, though. Do you have a few

minutes?"

He pauses before he answers, probably checking his watch. "Yes, I do."

I close my eyes for moment, picturing all of the things I need to say as bullet points on a white

board. "I going to leave school at the end of the semester." Before he can interrupt, I keep going.

"I tried. I did. I don't want to be in finance. I don't want to be in the Econ program anymore."

"And just what is it that you plan to do?"

This is the hard part, facing his overwhelming derision when I tell him not just what it is I want to

do, but also who I am. Because the two cannot be separated, and it is _that _point that he may

never come to understand.

"I'm going back to work so that I can keep writing. I tried to be both things here, and it's not

working. I can't be both, Dad. I'm a writer. It's all I can ever imagine myself doing with my life. It's

who I am."

On the other end of the phone, he's completely silent. This is not the reaction I expected, and

inside, I hunker down for the explosion yet to come.

"I – _we _- want you to finish college, Peter. You can't be anything of substance in this world

without an education."

_Depends on how you define substance, doesn't it, sir? _The sarcasm rises in my throat like bile,

but I swallow it back down, remembering my mother's advice.

"I'm not ruling out school someday, Dad."

"What are you going do, study creative writing? Get a goddamned MFA somewhere? Good

_Christ_," he sputters, "what the hell will you do with that?"

_Ah, there it is._

I clamp my jaws together, hard, holding it all back. "I don't know right now. I'm only 22 years old –

I have the rest of my life to go to school. But I _do _know that I don't want to study economics. I

don't want to work in securities."

"Peter, is this about the internship next summer?" It doesn't escape me that his voice has slipped

into calm again, his tone now smooth as silk, as if he is again handling a nervous investor, or one

of his prized equities. "Because if you want to come back here next summer, I could probably find

something for you in Seattle. You could write all summer."

I close my eyes for a moment, tempted again by a scenario in which he ultimately gets what he

wants, but leaves room for only half of what I need. Half of who I am. "No, Dad. No more deals."

He starts to protest, indignantly huffing, but I speak over him. "This is my decision, and it doesn't

require your approval."

And for him, _that _is the proverbial last straw. "And just how are you going to make a living? Go

back to bartending in podunk Forks? Go back to pouring drinks for people, all of the losers

content to stay exactly where they are, never achieving anything beyond a paycheck and an SUV

and watching the Seahawks on their flat screen TVs?"

Yeah, he just crossed a line right there. _Insult me, insult my writing ambitions. But don't insult my_

_customers, you arrogant prick._

"Let me tell you something about those losers, Dad. They're the people who drive logging trucks,

stock shelves at Wal-Mart, and coach soccer teams. Maybe they're not CEOs or PhDs, but

they're the _rest _of this country. And I'll pour a draught for them any day before I _ever _aspire to be

next big dick on the Street."

Through the sudden silence on the phone I hear two things: the blood pounding against my

eardrums, and my mother's voice in the background. She's probably trying to keep my father from

saying something that she'll be the only one to regret. And then she'll spend the next year

apologizing for him.

"Fine, I'm done," my father finally spits back. "Whatever you decide to do with your life, you'll get

no help from me – or your mother. Not a dime, Peter, do you hear? Not a single cent."

The absurdity of his threat, his complete lack of aim, strikes me as hilarious, and I shake my

head, laughing. "Well, nice talking to you, Dad. Tell mom I said goodbye. I'll be in touch."

He hangs up before I do, his feeble attempt at having the last word. I press End on my phone

and then toss it on the bed.

My father is the most intelligent man I've ever known, but I know more about life from listening to

the Beatles than I ever learned from him.

The adrenaline rush I had from arguing begins to subside, replaced by a profound relief. I flop

down onto my bed and stretch out, my hands behind my head. I start laughing, and then I can't

stop. I pick up my iPod from the nightstand and scroll through the Bs.

"I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love..." I sing, loud enough to wake Riley.

And then I laugh some more while I pack a duffle.

**~ O ~**

Eleven hours, four cups of coffee, and two tanks of gas later, I park the car a block from 1835

Hinman. As residence halls go, this one seems out of place with most of the other buildings on

campus. They are dignified, ivy-covered structures made of gray stone. This dorm is a

contemporary building, four stories high, made of brick and large windows.

Inside Hinman is a large atrium, which functions as the lobby. It's jammed with tables and chairs.

At 11:00 pm on a Saturday night, it shouldn't be this crowded with students, but finals are just a

few weeks away. Maybe no one wants to stray too far from the familiarity of dorm life.

At the far end of the long lobby is a big oak desk, and behind the desk sits a guy with his feet

propped up. He wears hipster eyeglasses and a Mumford and Sons tee shirt. He squints as his

eyes follow me through the lobby, sizing me up as I approach the desk. He does not smile.

Right now, the soundtrack of my life is playing that whistling melody from _The Good, the Bad, and_

_the Ugly._

"Can I help you?" he sneers.

"I'm here to visit a resident. Isabella Swan."

He looks me up and down. "Does she know you?"

"No, I'm a complete stranger, but I've been stalking her for months."

He rolls his eyes, and then picks up the phone. "Name?"

"Peter."

"Peter...?"

"Just Peter."

He punches a number into the computer on the desk, and then swivels his chair, showing me his

back. I can't hear what he's saying, but I can just make out a screech coming through the

receiver.

He spins back to face me.

"Uh... she'll be right down."

**Chapter Eleven**

It's Saturday night and I'm alone in my room. Kate has gone to Boston with Garrett for their big

"meet the parents" weekend, and I'm watching a _Jurassic Park _marathon on TBS. My phone

rings, a shrill scream right as the velociraptors are hunting those poor kids, and I jump at least a

foot, straight up off my bed.

"Good evening, Isabella Swan," says Victor, the grad student working the front desk, in his usual

flat, nasal monotone. His greeting, so blasé, so droll, pisses me off, having come on the heels of

being scared witless. It's been my observation that Victor finds most aspects of collegiate life

boring. Why he even works as an RA in an undergraduate residence hall is a complete mystery to

Kate and me.

"Victor," I reply, through clenched teeth, "to what do I owe this... _unexpected _pleasure?"

"You have a visitor. Down here, waiting."

"I _do_?" I shuffle through the stack of books on my desk, find my planner, and flip to this week.

Nope. No event I've forgotten. No visitor expected _- well, of course not, it's freaking 11:00 at_

_night._

"This is the part where you ask me who it is," Victor says, still clearly bored with this scenario.

"Oh!" I jerk my head up from my planner. "Who is it?"

"He says his name is Peter. _Just _Peter, to be exact."

"_What?_" I shriek into the phone. "Are you _kidding _me? I... I..." Twisting around, I take a 360-

degree look around at my room, struggling to take in this news. Why would he come here? Is

something wrong? _Oh, god, what if he's come to break up with me?_

I mentally slap myself, because that thought is nothing but ridiculous. He'd just said he loved me,

last night on the telephone.

"I'll be right there." I slam the phone down on poor Victor's ear.

I head for the door, only to skid to a full stop, taking in what I'm wearing: slippers, ratty sweat

pants, and a long-sleeve white tee that says UCLA down one arm, a birthday present from Alice. I

yank both off and slip on a pair of jeans, cringing at how much more snugly they fit. Opening a

drawer, I dig to the bottom and pull out a black cashmere sweater, last year's Christmas gift from

Renee, worn only twice (I'm always afraid I'll spill something on it.)

I drag a brush through my hair, and then inspect my teeth in the mirror for any visible remains of

the chicken Caesar salad I had for dinner.

Seeing my teeth makes me think of my breath. _Ugh, _how awful would it be to kiss my boyfriend

for the first time in three months reeking of garlic? With a flash of inspiration, I remember that

Kate is addicted to breath mints and stashes packages of them everywhere. Sure enough, there's

a tin in her desk drawer. I pop one into my mouth, speed-sucking on it as I rush from my room.

We live on the third floor of Hinman, but I've long since abandoned all efforts to use the elevator;

it's always busy or out of order. And it's not like I couldn't use a little exercise to counteract some

of the pounds I've put on this semester.

I rush down four flights of stairs, one hand on the railing to keep from falling. The stairwell

empties into the main lounge, and when I yank open the door, I see him standing at the RA desk,

writing in a notebook.

Victor spots me, and I see his mouth moving, though I can't hear him from across the room. And

then Peter's head snaps up and our eyes lock and I'm frozen in place, motionless except for my

hard breathing. Maybe it's from rushing down the stairs or maybe it's because, after three long

months away from him, he's standing there_, right now._

He throws the full George Clooney shrug at me, followed by his crazy smirk, and then I'm halfrunning

across the lounge. Peter drops his duffle and his laptop case onto the floor and he's

there, ready to catch me when I throw myself against his chest. My toes barely touch the floor

when he lifts me up into his arms, burying his face in my hair.

I have a death grip around his neck, my chin pressed into the hard muscle on top of his shoulder,

and I don't want to let go. _He's here, he's here_... I feel his back under my hands, his body so solid

against mine. He's taller than I remember, his shoulders wider.

"God, B," Peter says, his nose still buried against my neck. "You feel so good. It's all coming

back to me, the way you smell, the way you fit right _here_, like this." His voice catches just a little,

on that last part, and my heart stutters in response.

With another squeeze, he lets go, and I slide down until my feet are planted again on the floor,

and I can study his face. "And you're even cuter than I remember," I tell him, my fingertips tracing

the dimple in the center of his chin. I adore this chin. It was the first thing I noticed about him that

night we met.

I run my hand up into his hair, his blue eyes half-closing as he presses the side of his head into

my hand. "You must be exhausted from driving."

"No," he says, one side of his mouth turning up. "Not anymore."

"What are you _doing _here?" I smile back, taking in every part of his face. I cannot get enough of it.

And I'm completely unable to stop touching him.

This is _so _much better than Skype.

"I just...wanted to see you, B." He cradles the side of my head in his hand, his thumb sweeping

along my cheekbone. "To surprise you." His eyes move over my face, sweep down my body and

back up again. "You're _so _beautiful."

My eyes fill with tears, but I fight to keep them contained, shaking my head at him. I reach down

for his laptop case and sling it over my shoulder, almost forgetting to sign him in at the desk.

While I fill out the visitor log, I feel Victor's gaze over the top of his glasses. Peter's presence in

my dorm hall is now official. I have an "overnight guest," and my stomach does a few somersaults

as I slip my hand into his and lead him to the stairs.

Maybe he's a little nervous too, because he's gone quiet. Up the first flight of stairs, neither of us

speaks. On the landing, though, as we turn to take the next set of stairs, Peter's hand slides up

my back and under my hair, to rest against my neck.

"Wait," he says, stopping us. He brings his lips to my neck, kissing the spot below my ear before

trailing to the skin beneath my jaw. With a low whimper, I tug on a handful of his dark hair and

lean against him, but he pulls away, an evil smile on his face.

"Sorry. I had to pay my respects to your neck. It's been...a while."

I smack his arm with the heel of my hand and start up the stairs again, not waiting, and he follows

me. Just before we reach the next landing, his hand settles on my bottom, squeezing first one

side and then sliding to the other.

I turn, ready to scold him, but he's all wide-eyed innocence. "What? I had to respect that part of

you too."

"Get up here," I order, and he joins me on landing, standing very close.

Grabbing a fistful of his jacket, I pull him still closer, until his mouth is almost on mine. "Respect

_this_, buddy."

From somewhere far away, I hear his duffle bag fall to the floor, and then I'm backed quickly

against the wall. Pinning me with his chest, Peter kisses me. It's a long, deep kiss, one hand

behind my head to hold me still, and the other splayed across my stomach, sliding around to my

back and under my sweater.

We kiss for who knows how long, hands everywhere, our mouths relearning the angles and

curves of each other's jaws and chins. We remember how it feels when a lip is pulled between

two others. The way insistent tongues feel more thrilling when they take turns with chaste kisses

and gentle, nipping teeth.

I press my body into Peter's, breasts against his torso, my hips pushing against his, feeling him

hard now, under his jeans.

"Room," he says, freeing my earlobe from between his teeth.

"Mmmhmm," I answer, my head lolling to one side, drunk with this. Through a lust-cloud, I hear a

door slam somewhere below us.

"_Now_, Bella."

"Right."

Oddly, my hands are steady while I unlock my door, despite the fact that Peter is standing so

close behind me that I can feel his breath against my neck and his very prominent..._prominence_

right against my ass. I push back into him, absurd thoughts in my head: _oh my god, we're going_

_to have sex after so long... I hope I remember how to do this... will it hurt?_

As soon as we're inside and the door is closed, our hands are back on each other, pulling,

pushing, kneading.

Needing.

"Please, B," he says, his voice pleading into my ear, low and husky, my back against the door. He

pushes my sweater up, pulling my bra to one side to expose a breast before covering it with his

hand, his thumb stroking across the nipple.

I nod furiously, eyes closed, wondering if it's physically possible to have an orgasm from just this.

Not that I'm going to settle for finding out.

My hand slides down to the swelling in his jeans. "_This _cannot be comfortable," I tell him.

Peter groans softly, his forehead against my shoulder. "You have no idea."

"Well then..." I work the button at his waist, tugging hard, catching a nail on the zipper. _I'll never_

_be graceful at this part of it._

My hand seeks him out, gently pushing the elastic of his boxers down, freeing him, so warm and

hard in my palm. He breathes in, sharp and sudden, and while I stroke the hard-soft length of

him, I smile at my power - yet another part of this I'd forgotten.

Peter has my jeans open with one hand – the show-off – and he plunges it down and inside my

thighs. I squirm against that hand, and my knees are weak, all sensation now focused on the

warmth between my legs. "_Yes_..." I whisper against the top of his head, which is now bent to my

breast, his mouth on it, sensation pushing me to the point of collapse.

"Your body," he says, moving his lips to the other side. "And your _skin_."

"Needed this...so long," I whisper. "Need you. Now..._please_..."

And that's when things move very fast, as Peter pulls me away from the door, backing the short

distance to my bed. Sitting down on the edge, he draws me between his legs and snakes my

jeans and panties down over my hips, helping me with my balance while I step out of them.

He guides me, both hands on my hips, down into his lap so that I straddle it. We kiss again,

hungry and greedy and demanding. The nearness, my own ache so close to his, is more than I

can bear, and I squirm and push against him while we kiss.

Peter rolls his head back, eyes closed. "_Fuck_..." With a quick, deft movement, he buries himself

inside me, and we cry out together at the sudden sensation of being together again.

But one of the many reasons I love him is that he's able to stop. "Okay?" he murmurs, our

foreheads pressed together.

"God, yes. So okay," I answer, falling against him and pulling him close.

His hands hold my hips steady as pushes up into me, using his strength to keep us together. He

slides his hands up my back, grasping my shoulders, pulling us closer.

I have him now, exactly where I needed him: between my thighs, under me, surrounding me. I

bear down on him, my weight on my knees, and we go on from there – moving faster, gasping

breaths, little cries into each other's mouths: curses, pleas, declarations of love.

But it's over quickly; this position strikes every spot already balanced on a knife's edge. I sob and

gasp and clutch his head tight against my chest. The muscles across his shoulders and in his

thighs tense even as the rest of him finds release, "I love you" like a litany that spills from his lips.

When we finish, we don't move, little aftershocks holding us in place. We cling to each other, and

again I push back tears, overcome with the reality of this moment. He is here, the man I missed

every day for three months, whose words and voice have moved me more times than I can

recount.

Peter pulls back the covers of my bed as I turn out the light. We help each other out of the rest of

our clothes before climbing into the bed to hold each other close, warm skin against warm skin.

And again my tears come, but this time I don't fight them back. Peter's finger trails across my

cheek, smoothing them away, as my own hand reaches for his face.

"I missed you," I whisper, my voice quavering with emotion kept under lock and key for so long.

"I know," he answers, gathering my hair away from face. "Me too. Every day. I have so much to

tell you, B. But right now, I just need to feel you for a while."

Even lying on our sides, with me tucked into him, his chin a ceiling above my head, we take up all

of the space on my single bed. His palm travels across my skin with warm pressure, up and down

my back, across my hip and down my thigh. I melt into this touching, muscle and flesh softening

like clay worked between a potter's hands.

My fingers roam the landscape of his back, traveling the slopes and valleys, up to his shoulders,

solid and round, like ancient mountains.

Trapping my top leg between his, Peter rubs firm circles on my bottom, like the most sensual

massage I've ever had - until I remember how much I had dreaded him seeing this slightly

plumper version of myself. I duck my head down, my face against the mattress.

"What?"

I shake my head.

"Bella..."

I answer him with a deep sigh. "Oh... it's my...weight? I've gained like ten pounds in three months.

_Ten_."

"Everyone gains a few during freshman year. It's the dining hall food."

Actually, most of the weight came from eating starchy food to fight my stomach pain, like crackers

and toast and rice. I'll tell him about all of that soon, but not right now. Right now is about happy

things, good things, like us in this crowded bed.

"I think it all went to my ass," I tell him. "Why couldn't any of it have gone to my boobs?"

He laughs, a rumble in his chest that, because we're so close, moves over into mine.

"I'm just glad you call yourself an ass man and don't have a boob fixation."

"I beg your pardon? I talk to your boobs all the time."

I give his shoulder a playful shove and scoot back to the edge of the bed. He laughs again, his

body shaking as he pulls me closer and goes back to massaging my lower body.

"I didn't think it was possible for your ass to be any more perfect, B," he says into my ear,

squeezing my flesh gently for emphasis. "But clearly I was wrong." His hand begins roaming

again. "As a matter of fact, I think some of it _did _go to your boobs."

I half moan, half purr in response - the most contented of cats.

He nudges my chin up and brings his mouth to mine, kissing my lower lip. "So don't lose these

pounds, okay? And you won't even have to buy me a Christmas present."

_Bang_. Damn, he killed me again with the words. I pull him to me, hugging him in thanks.

Even though I'd felt him growing hard again against my belly, his long day of driving catches up

with him, and Peter's body demands that he pay the toll. I hear his breathing even out, becoming

regular and hypnotic.

Inhaling deeply, I take it all inside – his sleeping breaths, the warmth and scent of his body. The

welcome soreness between my legs. A deep-down contentment that comes from the knowledge

that I'm loved and wanted by another.

I am full now, my body swollen with happiness, and my heart whispers _rest_.

And I drift away, to join Peter in sleep.

**Chapter Twelve**

Something touches my nose, making it itch. My chest is damp with sweat, and I can't move my

left arm without setting off a prickling fire under my skin.

The tickling thing brushes against my nose again, and I swat at it with my hand – the other hand,

the one that still has feeling.

"Hey," she mumbles against my skin, indignant. And then the fuzzy thing moves.

I jerk my head back on the pillow, my cramped neck cracking at the sudden movement. "Morning,

beautiful girl."

"Morning," Bella grumbles. _Still not her best time of the day, I see._

"Sorry, but your hair was tickling my nose. I was dreaming about feather dusters and spiders."

"Not a bed made for two, I'm afraid." Bella shifts away from me, turning her head into the pillow.

_And still self-conscious of her morning breath._

"No, but I'll take the cramped space with you over a king-sized bed all by myself, any day."

Bella turns to peek at me, and I see longing in her deep-brown eyes. "I missed you and that silver

tongue."

"Because you know what I can do with this tongue."

She rolls her eyes, even as she flushes, rosy skin against the white bedding. I'm dumbfounded by

her loveliness, even if she does look as tired as my bones feel. And I can't have that – can't have

it for myself, either, if I'm going to be driving back all the way back to Philly tomorrow.

"I've got a great idea."

"Uh oh."

"No, you're going to like this, if you can just go with it."

"Really? Okay, let's hear it."

"I love you, but this bed? It doesn't meet requirements. Pack a bag, because I'm taking you to a

hotel for the rest of the weekend. One with room service, and a big bed with obscenely soft

sheets and a dozen pillows. And a shower built for two people, so I can wash your hair. Stop me

anytime here."

Her mouth twists, holding back a smile. "You're a crazy person. It's Sunday morning, and I have

classes tomorrow. It's two weeks before finals."

"I'll have you back for your first class. Promise."

"What about _your _first class?"

"Don't have one until Tuesday."

Bella squints at me, and then I know she's weakening.

"Remember what I used to do, when I tried to make you do something I wanted?"

She squirms farther away, until she's almost falling off the mattress. "Please don't tickle me. I

have a full bladder and can't be held responsible."

"Well played, Swan, considering the fact that we're both squeezed into the same single bed."

"Exactly."

I push her hair back from her face and tap her nose with my finger. "So? What do you say to a

little hotel adventure?"

Her eyebrows scrunch together while she considers this, but then a smile spreads across her

face. I live for that smile, and I easily could make it my life's work, putting one there every

morning.

"Okay - but I'll have to bring some reading assignments with me."

"No problem. I'll try to keep my hands off you." _No promises, though._

"Don't try too hard."

**~ O ~**

When I open the door to our room at the Hotel Monaco, Bella gasps and stands stock-still. I tug

her forward across the threshold, dropping our bags on the floor. She wanders around the room,

trailing fingers across the dresser, and then picking up a small, square pillow from the bed and

hugging it to her chest. The bed has an enormous headboard, with an oval mirror set into its

center. She stops when she catches a glimpse of herself in it, and she tucks her hair behind her

ear.

One night at this hotel costs as much as I make at the Penn bookstore in almost a month, but if it

goes as I hope, it will be more than worth it. Twenty-four hours with Bella and this big,

comfortable bed, talking with her about what matters. And showing her – not just telling her – how

I feel.

"Come here, Peter," she says, "Look at this."

I stand behind her at the window, hugging her back against my chest. The buildings of downtown

Chicago flank the river below us and stand sentry over the bridges spanning its deep green

water. This view should be even more stunning tonight, the buildings lit up, their lights casting a

glow across the water.

"Hungry?" I ask, my chin resting on her shoulder. We'd grabbed coffee this morning while we

packed, but we left her dorm without stopping for breakfast. It's almost 10:00 am now, and my

stomach is a growling monster.

"I'm starved." She turns in my arms and looks up at me. "Can we get something sent up here?"

She's clearly tired, but this idea brings the light back into her eyes.

"You're a mind reader, Miss Swan." I kiss her forehead, feeling her face smile under my lips.

I pick up the phone to call room service while Bella picks up her bag. "I'm grabbing a shower

before it gets here," she calls, disappearing into the bathroom. "Oh. My. God."

While I order a big breakfast and a pot of coffee, I hear running water. With my breakfast mission

accomplished, I head directly to the bathroom to see why she's invoking deities.

It's big, all right – granite sinks and earth-tone ceramic tile, bronze fixtures and mirrors.

But the most breathtaking thing in there by far is _her_, standing naked in the oversized shower.

Her eyes are closed, her head thrown back into the waterfall, long hair streaming down her back.

I lean against the doorway, arms folded, and watch her for a moment. _Because I really am a_

_creepy stalker, after all. _And then she opens her eyes to reach for the shampoo bottle and sees

me.

"What are you waiting for?" she asks, a seductive smile playing at the corners of her mouth while

her hand strokes the shampoo bottle suggestively. "Don't you want your old job back?"

I toe off my sneakers and step into the shower.

"You complete lunatic," she says, laughing at me and grabbing for the buttons on my shirt.

"What? You're standing there, naked and wet, holding out a bottle of shampoo and offering me

employment."

I watch her as she undresses me in the water, which is unbelievably hot – her, not the water –

and then tosses my wet clothes into the corner. "I didn't want to be late for work," I say with a

shrug, grinning down at her beautiful face.

She _tsks _at me and turns away, offering her hair for washing. I gather it all up in my hands, pour

on some shampoo and work it into a lather, massaging her scalp. My hands make the occasional

detour around her body, rubbing her neck, soaping her breasts and her curving hips and belly.

_She really wears those ten pounds well. _She sighs against my chest, her shoulders sagging while

she rotates her head, working out some of the kinks from her contorted sleep.

"Were you nervous? Last night, I mean?" she asks, and I love that we've slipped almost

effortlessly back into the trusting, able to talk about sex and need and insecurity.

"A little. Guys are always a bit nervous when it's been awhile – stage fright, I guess. Why, were

you?"

"Yeah." She turns to face me, smiling. "But it all came back to us, huh?" She tips her head back

into the water, closing her eyes again as she rinses the shampoo from her hair. Her breasts lift

along with her upraised arms, and they sway seductively with the motion, nipples taunting me

through the trails of shampoo.

She catches me staring (again), and her eyes dart down to my front. "I could hang a washcloth on

that."

"I can think of other things to hang from it."

"So can I," she says, sliding down to her knees, her hand closing around my now aching hard-on.

"Uh...okay," I say, all other words failing me as she pulls my dick in her mouth, and I'm lost,

completely lost in the whole sensation, the one I tried so hard to keep in my memory these last

months, every time I had to settle for my hand instead of her. I throw my head back, eyes closed,

and enter Paradise.

She uses her mouth and her hand together... warm water, warm tongue... sliding and pulling. Her

other hand is never still, either, moving up and down my thigh, across the cheeks of my ass, and

then..._fucking hell, she's killing me_... moving back to the front, rolling my balls in the palm of her

hand.

_I'm _in the palm of her hand.

Opening my eyes, I glance down at her, and _Christ_, just the sight of her, warm brown eyes staring

up at mine, her mouth closed around me, taking me in and giving, giving – always more to give –

and now my knees are shaking and I'm close, so close and – _fuck, shit, god, so good_.

Groaning, I finish, and I'm breathing hard, ready to collapse. I hold her by the elbows and raise

her to her feet, my arms crushing her to me, and this girl... _this _girl... I am never letting go of her

again.

"Okay?" she says, into my neck.

"Okay? _Okay? _God, I love you. That was... fucking incredible, that's what."

She pulls away to look at me, her smile wicked and triumphant. "That all came back to me, too."

**~ O ~**

We face each other on the bed, both of us in sleep pants and tee shirts. Bella bemoans the fact

that because I arrived unexpectedly, she had no time to go buy something pretty to wear to bed. I

tell her it's a waste of money, that her body – especially this slightly curvier version – is so much

better than any piece of lingerie I'd just be pulling off her within a minute, anyway.

Her face glows as she leans across the room service trays to kiss me. She tastes of butter and

maple syrup. And possibly me.

We're eating breakfast up here, cross-legged, waffles and bacon and fruit between us.

Reaching back to the nightstand for my mug, I swallow down another mouthful of coffee. Bella

had stopped after one cup, refusing a refill, and when I asked her why – because _that _was

certainly different for her – she pulled a pill bottle from her purse. With some hesitation, she

showed it to me. "A prescription antacid," she explained. "I had a bleeding ulcer last month, in the

middle of mid-terms."

And we talked at length about it – what caused it, and what she was doing to get better. While

she spoke, I kept pushing down the panic in the pit of my stomach, a panic that threatened to spill

over when I imagined the amount of stress she had been under, and what part I might have

played in that.

_I didn't know_, I kept repeating, like some idiot who never saw the plot twists coming in a screwball

comedy.

_Why didn't you tell me? _I wanted to yell at her, picturing her in a hospital bed in a strange city,

alone.

Calmly, she told me that she was better, that the ulcer was healing well, and she was taking steps

to manage her stress. The contrast between this girl and the one I met at a party only a year ago

was profound. That girl was a tightly wound ball of resentment and anger and self-doubt. The girl

before me right now was possessed of so much self-awareness that it rendered me speechless.

"If I had told you and my parents about it at the time, your worry would have been one more thing

for me to manage. I'm sorry you're upset, but I dealt with it, it's over, and I think in some ways, I'm

the better for it."

I shook my head and just gaped at her. "Nineteen," I mumbled.

She rolled her eyes and told me to pass the butter for her pancakes.

When we're both stuffed full of breakfast, I set the trays outside the door and hang the Do Not

Disturb tag on the handle. When I come back, Bella is laying back on the bed pillows, reading a

textbook with a highlighter in her hand. She pats the bed next to her, and I dig out my laptop and

join her. She watches me as I settle in, open up the chapter I'm working on and start typing.

But I feel her eyes still on me. "What?"

She smiles softly, and touches her hand to my hair. "Thank you."

Despite our professed intentions about being productive, too many things conspire against us:

last night's poor sleep, the comfort of this bed, and the nearness of each other. Yawning, I save

my work and close the laptop, finding Bella already out like a light next to me, her textbook resting

on her chest.

I'm reminded that in sleep, Bella's face always appears younger to me. Because her eyes are

closed, her usual seriousness is hidden. Her brow is relaxed, and her pale skin smooth, almost

flawless. She resembles a figure in one of Maxfield Parrish's fairytale illustrations –especially

now, reclined like this against a pile of pillows.

But her unchanged face is in contrast to Bella herself. This morning she's shown me how much

she's grown in just the last few months. She's taking care of herself, without input from anyone

else. And she's clearly focused on schoolwork, enough so that she hesitated about spending the

rest of the weekend in this hotel.

It should have occurred to me that she would have changed this semester – after all, I had, too. It

makes me wonder what else about her I would discover, if we had more time this weekend.

Carefully, I take the book from her hands and set it aside. She turns in her sleep, her back to me

now, and I kiss the side of her head softly, inhaling the scent of shampoo and her skin cream. It

takes all of my self-restraint not to wake her. I want wrap myself around her, make every part of

her a contact point. But we both need rest, so we'll have energy later.

I leave some distance between us, but lay a hand on her hip, allowing myself just one connection.

This afternoon, I'm going to tell her everything. I'm going to surprise her with my idea. But as I go

over the words again in my head, I feel sleep pull me out to a calm sea. I drift there, floating on its

surface, where no one struggles for air.

**~ O ~**

The second time Bella wakes me, she does it intentionally, and this time there are no feather

dusters, only her fingers trailing through my hair. And there are definitely no spiders, just her lips

leaving lingering kisses on my chin.

I smile but keep my eyes closed, encouraging her to leave her fingers where they are. My plan

works: she begins to rub firm circles against my head, and I hum my appreciation.

"Peter?"

"Hmm?"

"Why are you here?"

I open my eyes and find myself looking directly into hers, our faces close, the pillows overlapping.

"I told you. I wanted to surprise you."

"I know, but why now? We're less than two weeks from finals, and we've already gone all of this

time apart. In just a few weeks, we'll be together for the holiday break."

I'd go on the defensive during this interrogation, if only her questions weren't so honest and

reasonable. Turning onto my back, I study the ceiling, composing the right answer.

"Is there something you haven't told me yet?"

I look over at her, so still in her patience, and then back to the ceiling. "I was going to tell you over

dinner, explain everything and make this big announcement."

She glances at the clock next to the bed. "Well, it's only 2:18 in the afternoon. I don't think I can

wait that long."

I sit up, propping pillows behind me. "Okay," I answer, with mock indulgence. "Come here."

I pat the space in front of me, and she moves there, our knees touching. I take her hand, grinning

again, despite an effort to be serious about this.

"What? This gets more mysterious by the second," she says.

"I tried, Bella. I tried to do what my parents wanted without giving up on what I wanted for myself.

And I failed... more like crashed and burned, I guess."

She encourages me with gentle pressure on my fingers.

"I've been miserable," I continue. "Missing you, hating my classes. Resenting everything that

kept me from writing."

"And angry?"

"Yeah, I was. But I'm not anymore." I pull her hand to my mouth, and leave a kiss on her palm.

"Because I'm fixing it now, all of it. I'm leaving Penn at the end of the semester, and I'm not going

back."

Her eyes are wide. "You're _not_? Do your parents know?"

I nod. "I told my father yesterday morning, before I left Philly. He's pretty pissed off. I don't think

he'll speak to me for a while."

"And your mother?"

"I think she's supportive, even if she doesn't approve of my decision."

"So, are you transferring to another program?" She inhales sharply, her face alight. "You're going

to study writing?"

"No... I don't know. Maybe at some point."

"Then what are you going to do?"

I take her hand again, as well as her other hand, holding them both between mine. I search her

face for a long moment, savoring it, because even unspoken, my next words make me happier

than I've ever been in my life.

Bella tilts her head, her brow wrinkling. "What? You're about to grin your face off."

I take a deep breath and jump in. "I'm moving here, to Chicago, to be with you. I'll get a job and

an apartment for both of us. It'll be just like it was in Forks, except that we won't ever have to say

goodbye, just 'see you at home.'"

I pull her closer to me, her legs overlapping mine. Her head between my hands, I kiss her softly,

and then deeper when she doesn't respond. Maybe she's too surprised to speak.

"I'll write during the day while you're in class, and I'll help you study before I go to work. You can

teach me to cook real food, and then we'll take turns making dinner." I laugh; she's still

speechless. "Just say yes, babe. Say yes to waking up together every morning."

Her head falls and she stares into her lap, fingering the hem of her tee shirt. I touch my forehead

to hers, nudging her to answer. "Come on, B. Say yes."

"No."

It's just one small syllable, but it cuts the air like an axe falling between us. I pull back sharply, not

breathing, while I search her face for confirmation that she's just playing with me.

She shakes her head with the smallest movement, and her eyes fill with tears.

She's not playing.

"_No? _What, exactly, does that mean?"

"I can't live with you, Peter."

Now I'm shaking _my _head, trying to make sense of what's happening. It's far, far from what I

imagined. When I planned this, there had been no need for a contingency plan, because "no" had

never entered my head.

"I don't understand. I thought you'd want this, too."

"But it's not that simple – it's not that I don't want it. It's more complicated than that."

"No, it's really pretty simple. You're it for me. All I want is to be who I am: a writer. And in love with

you. I need you in my life, Bella,"

"And I need you in mine, too. I love you - with my whole heart." She wipes away a tear, pushing

hard against her cheek. "But I'm nineteen years old, Peter. And you're telling me you're moving to

Chicago to be with me, and you want me to live with you. And I'm sorry if that's a bit

overwhelming."

"Is that the problem? Well, okay, then you can stay on campus, but at least we'll be in the same

city instead of a thousand miles apart."

She shakes her head. "No, that's not what I mean. That's not it. It's more than that."

"Well then, help me understand, please."

She untangles her legs from mine and hugs them to her chest, then lowers her face against her

knees. Seeing her in this pose twists my gut.

I shouldn't rush her for an explanation. I shouldn't push her, so I wait.

My throat is thick, my mouth dry. I leave her to pour a glass of water, but drink it too fast and

swallowing hurts. I pour one for her, too, but she shakes her head. Her fists are closed tight.

"It's not that I don't want to be with you," she says, her voice shaking. "That's not it all. This is

about me, and where I am right now."

"And that's exactly what _I've _been struggling with for the last three months, but in the last week, it

all became clear for me." I gesture to her, my hands open, giving the last part of me. "Right now,

you're all I have left, all that matters anymore. But that's okay, because I don't need anything or

anyone else but you."

"_Stop_."

This word lands on my chest like a prizefighter's blow. Bella lifts her head from her knees, and

her eyes are streaming tears. "That's the thing, Peter; I can't be all that you need, because I have

to be that for _me_. I can't be your everything right now. And even if I stayed on campus, that would

just be logistics."

She wipes her cheeks with her fingers. "I was just learning how to be alone, how to put myself

first," she continues, her voice breaking again. "Because _not _doing that was making me sick. Can

you understand that? This really _is _about me and not us."

After a long silence, I answer. "I do understand. It's just thrown me. I didn't... expect this." I rub

hard against the back of my neck. I need to think, need to figure out what to do.

"What are you doing?" she asks, as I open my duffle and pull out clothes.

"I'm going for a walk. I need to think about this. And about what I should do."

"Are you angry?" The pitch of her voice rises.

"No. I'm... confused. Sad. I just need some air."

I dress quickly and pull on my winter jacket. Bella watches silently from her spot on the bed.

She's holding a pillow in her lap now, her hands bunching the fabric.

"I won't be gone long."

**~ O ~**

Chicago in December. The cold air is sharp, and a steady breeze blows against my face. The sun

is shining, though, making all of the granite and concrete look brighter, cleaner. The sidewalks on

State are crowded with Sunday shoppers and tourists. It's easy to spot the natives: they're the

ones who stride purposefully, only pausing to curse at the tourists who stop directly in front of

them to consult their guidebooks or gaze at a building.

On my way back, I cut over to Wabash, so I can take the bridge closest to the hotel. Old stone

towers guard each end of the drawbridge, so imposing that I almost think I need to ask

permission to cross.

Midway over the bridge, I stop to look up at the Monaco, searching for our room and wondering if

Bella is looking out the window right now.

I had been so sure that I had the answers, that being together would solve everything. Talking to

Charlotte had been the push I needed to break away from my parents' expectations and

demands. All that had been left to fix was the distance between Bella and me.

But she shocked me with her rejection, and now, instead of the clarity of yesterday, the answers

had blurred again.

Turning from the hotel, I lean on the railing of the bridge's walkway and watch the tourist boats on

the river. Outfitted for winter now, they glide almost silently through the water, carefully piloted,

always keeping the waterfront to their starboard sides.

I had made the mistake of assuming that Bella needed me as much as I thought I needed her. Or

maybe I'd just been equating _missing _with _needing_.

She'd changed more than I had even realized.

_Changed or simply grown? _Isn't that what Renee had wanted for her daughter? For Bella to have

no regrets – to make her own mistakes, because then all of her triumphs would be her own, as

well.

I had said I wanted that for her, too, but did I really mean it? By moving to Chicago "for us,"

maybe I was just swooping in to make it all easier for her. _Or easier for me?_

And in a split second, it all comes back into focus again, with as much precision as a

photographer turning a lens.

No wonder she told me no.

I shove both hands into my hair, hooking them behind my neck as I look back up at the Monaco.

_Oh, baby, I'm sorry. What an ass... what an arrogant fool I've been._

Bella didn't need me to rescue her from anything – and more importantly, she didn't want it,

either. She wasn't Charlotte. She wasn't even _me_, taking two years to figure out exactly what I

had to change.

_My beautiful, smart girl. _She'd figured it all out in one semester.

**~ O ~**

"I get it," I say, a little out of breath as I stand in the doorway of our room. "I get it now. God, I was

a stupid jerk."

"Come here," she says from her place by the window, where she's folded into a big chair. She

lays her book aside and holds out a hand, her face a little sad, and I wonder if she cried while I

was gone. I'm going to spend the rest of my life making sure I never do that again.

Kneeling in front of her, my jacket still on, I put my hand in hers. She startles at my cold touch, but

then puts her other hand over it and rubs mine between hers. She smiles into my eyes and relief

spreads over me like a gust of warm air.

"You weren't stupid. You just needed to think."

I lay my head in her lap, and she weaves her fingers through my hair. "I'm so sorry, B. I left

instead of talking things out."

"Hey, sometimes you need a little time to yourself before you're ready to talk."

"Can we do that? Talk some more?"

"I think we need to."

Straightening, I shrug out of my coat and toss it on the bed. Before I take the other chair next to

her, I lean in very close, until I can see my reflection in her brown eyes. "I just really, really need

to do something first," I whisper.

"You'd better," she answers. There's a smile at one corner of her mouth, so that's where I begin. I

kiss her there, and then move to the other corner, and then trap her bottom lip before sliding into

home. _She had orange spice tea while I was gone. _It's a fascinating contradiction, kissing her:

thrilling and always new, yet still as familiar as the house you grew up in.

"I love you," she whispers, before I pull away. "Please believe that."

"I do. But I realize now that there's more that you need, more left for you to discover." I sit in the

empty chair but keep hold of her hand. "And throwing myself into your life here might hinder that. I

don't want to do that for anything. I want you to keep focusing on _you_."

She nods, and for a second I think she might cry again. _Shit, Bennett, are you going to blow this_

_whole weekend making your girlfriend cry?_

"I thought a lot, too, while you were gone – couldn't really focus much on my reading. Do you

know why we're both writers? Because we live in the gray areas. It's never black and white for us.

It's not 'stay or go' or 'love me or leave me.' It's not a matter of us having to be together to make

_us _work."

"How do we do it, then?"

She shrugs. "I don't know. People who hang out in the gray areas live with not knowing every

day, but guess what? They keep trying to figure it out."

"I like figuring things out with you," I tell her, my finger tracing the upturned ends of her mouth.

"How should we start?"

"I think you should go back to Forks and chase your dream. Ask Mike Flanagan for your job back

and finish the novel. You're grounded in Forks – it's where your roots are strongest."

I think she's right about that. Maybe it's no coincidence that my writing had come easier there

than at any other time in my life.

"But you're one of my roots, too. I'm sorry, but I can't deny that."

"I know," she says, reaching for my hand this time. "And I want to be. But I'm still learning about

how to take care of _myself_. I feel... unfinished. I want to be really sure that I can stand on my own

and solve my own problems and just be...great, as Bella. Not Bella who always has someone

there to rescue her from her own self-doubts."

Leaning across the small space between us, she presses her palm against my cheek. "I'll be fine

here. I'll finish freshmen year, and we'll have all summer together. Then maybe we can talk about

you being here with me, all of the time."

"I'll miss you until then," I tell her, turning my head to kiss the inside of her wrist. With effort, I

push down the sadness that's settled on my chest at the thought of being apart for another

semester. "But I think I will go back to Forks, B. I think I can write there, knowing that you'll be

coming back, too."

And I smile at a new thought: "It'll be like finding you all over again."

**~ O ~**

"Mmm..._God_, that's _good_," she moans, her eyes sliding shut. Her lips close on the end of my

fingers as I pull them from her mouth, a sensation that goes straight to my dick. "Now it's my

turn," she says, her voice smoky.

Bella reaches for a strawberry and drags it through the bowl, coating it with whipped cream

before putting it to my mouth. I bite into it, fragrant and sweet, like a summer day. "_So _good. And

you do that so well, baby."

Fresh strawberries in December - the dessert portion of yet another meal eaten here on the bed,

neither one of us wanting to share the other with a dining room full of people.

In between meals, we had snacked on each other.

"I can't believe I've spent all day in this room," she says, lying back on the pillows to stretch like a

cat. My eyes follow the smooth plane of her stomach, where the edge of her tee shirt rides up

above the low waistband of her pants.

"Like in that movie, _Barefoot in the Park."_

"Yes! Gosh, my grandmother really loved that movie. I totally can see us on _our _honeymoon, not

coming out of our hotel room for a week."

The silence on the bed is as thick as the comforter, and the look of pure panic that sweeps across

her face is magic, absolutely priceless. She flushes bright crimson from her neck to her hairline.

"Oh my god," she groans, and grabs a pillow to hold over her face. "I didn't mean..."

I have a few choices. I could let it slide without comment, shortening her self-inflicted

embarrassment. Or, I could distract her, maybe grab her feet and tickle them until she has to go

to the bathroom.

I opt for something in between, something... in the gray. Moving the room service tray out of the

way, I climb over her until my body hovers above hers, and then I drop, pressing down with my

chest just enough to make her laugh. Every time she inhales a breath or tries to speak, I press

down again and she laughs even harder.

And from out of nowhere, I don't want her laughing anymore, maybe because I want her to do

other things instead. Rolling from her and onto my side, I lie close while she catches her breath.

She looks at me, her face still tinted pink and her eyes sparkling wet from laughter. _Yeah, those_

_are the tears I want to see._

Pressing the tip of her finger into my chin, she says, "'Hey, la, my boyfriend's back.'"

I grin, singing into her ear, "'You and me, babe. How about it?'"

"I love that song. I'm so glad you put it on my –"

I cover her mouth with mine, and it's a bruising kiss, impatient, because I'd been staring at that

mouth for the last hour, watching it wrap around strawberries, whipped cream at the corners. I

saw it stretched wide while she laughed, noticed the way it pursed in a little pout while she made

fun of me.

And that's all any man should have to take.

Easing back until my lips just brush hers, I tease her without mercy, touching just the top, now the

bottom. Frustrated, she pushes up on her elbows, coming after me, _harder-more _in her eyes_. _So I

let her have that for a while.

Needing to feel all of her skin, I shimmy her sleep pants down over the curve of her hips, kissing

the spot on the inside of each, where they dip down toward her belly. And that makes her writhe

and tangle her fingers in my hair.

And then I groan out loud because there are... No. Panties. Underneath. "All day, like this?" I ask,

my voice cracking.

"Yep. You're out walking around the city, and I'm sitting here waiting, commando."

I shake my head at the unbearable sadness. _So much wasted time._

_Better make up for it._

Pulling her to a sitting position, I order: "Off with that," and she lifts her tee shirt over her head

with exaggerated slowness, and there, underneath - _fuck yes _- is that strapless satin bra. "God,"

I breathe, "I love your little sentimental streak."

I caress the satin cups with my fingers, drag my thumbs along the band, making her squirm.

"Well, are you going to, or should I – "

"Shush." I open the front clasp and the satin falls away, leaving ivory satin-skin underneath. "Oh,

hello, girls. I've missed you so. Come to Peter."

She falls back on the bed, giggling and pulling me with her. I feast on her until her hips are

pushing against mine, looking for _harder-more, _and she's pulling on my hair, yanking my mouth

from her breasts up to her demanding tongue.

Gasping, she pulls back and shoves against my chest, forcing me up. "Once again, I am naked

and you are not. You know how I hate that." She's pouting again. I'd tell her to cut that shit out,

but I know what else she can do with her mouth.

While I stand next to the bed, taking off my clothes, Bella stares, a smile playing on one side of

her mouth. I stare back at the work of art before me, reclining on her side... long hair falling

across her perfect breasts... the contour of her waist as it changes direction at the top of her hip,

flaring into fullness before tapering down the lovely length of her legs.

_A love-struck Romeo._

I lie down next to her again and pull her on top of me because I love her up there. It's the way I

first had her, the first time _anyone _had her, and I'll never stop being grateful for that, thankful that

it was I she picked.

"So beautiful." My fingers skim her legs as she straddles my hips. "So unbelievably sexy," I tell

her, caressing her hip with one hand, palming a breast with my other.

Bella's face colors, but she leans down for a soft kiss, leaving her fingers against my lips. "I love

you, and every single thing that comes out of that mouth of yours, you ridiculous, romantic fool."

"Yeah? What about this," I ask, pulling her forward on her knees as I slide down until my head is

between them. I hold her hips in place as she leans on the headboard for balance.

"Oh, god, that too," she says, all breathy sighs as I trail my lips across the inside of her thigh.

I recall the mirror on the headboard. "Can you see yourself right now, baby?"

"Yes."

"I'm jealous. Watch for both of us, then."

And I taste her, and she's mother earth on my tongue, salty wet leaves and new-mown grass.

This is the best part, her soft sounds falling on my ears, mysterious muscles against my mouth,

contracting as she comes apart above me.

I pull her gently from her kneeling, and she burrows into the shelter of my arm, burying her face

against my shoulder while she comes down. I hold her tight, keep her safe until she's back with

me.

"Want you," she murmurs, her hand traveling over my chest and down across my stomach,

sweeping closer but always just missing my dick. I groan in frustration, and finally, she takes it in

her hand, and I harden quickly inside it.

"I love feeling that happen," she says in my ear, and I almost lose it right then.

I push her onto her back gently, positioning myself above her. She grabs my hips and watches as

I slide into her, and it's relief, _sweet relief_, flooding through me.

I start slow, because I want it to last – god, I need it to last – it's _got _to last, maybe for who knows

how long until I can be with her like this again.

Bella's legs circle my waist, pulling me deeper, but it's still not enough. I take one of her knees

and bend it gently up toward her chest and her eyes widen in shock and she inhales sharply as I

move even deeper inside her.

"So good," she whispers. "You..."

"Only you," I repeat and then I lose control and push into her harder and faster, but I need her to

stay with me. I reach between us and find her, circling and pressing, until she's crying out,

sobbing and gasping. I let go, thrust just a few more times to catch up with her, and we both

come together.

Sweaty and exhausted, we collapse, side by side, on our backs. And then this beautiful girl starts

to laugh, silly and a little giddy. "That was... _god_, I have no words. But you probably do."

I lean up onto one arm and look down at my found treasure. "No. Some things just defy

description."

**~ O ~**

At some point during the night, I wake and turn toward Bella, asleep on the pillow next to mine. I

pull her closer, because without looking, I know that daybreak is almost here.

The next five or six months won't be easy, but in the long run, that won't matter; they'll be just a

blip on a very long timeline.

Because I'll spend the rest of my days on earth with Bella, learning from her how to be a better

man.

How to write from the honest places in my heart.

And how it's possible to love more by simply letting go.


End file.
